- Letter
Open momentum space method for the Hofstadter butterfly and the quantized Lorentz susceptibility
Phys. Rev. B 103, L161405 – Published 20 April, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.L161405
Abstract
We develop a generic open momentum space method for calculating the Hofstadter butterfly of both continuum (moiré) models and tight-binding models, where the quasimomentum is directly substituted by the Landau level (LL) operators. By taking a LL cutoff (and a reciprocal lattice cutoff for continuum models), one obtains the Hofstadter butterfly with in-gap spectral flows. For continuum models such as the moiré model for twisted bilayer graphene, our method gives a sparse Hamiltonian, making it much more efficient than existing methods. The spectral flows in the Hofstadter gaps can be understood as edge states on a momentum space boundary, from which one can determine the two integers () of a gap satisfying the Diophantine equation. The spectral flows can also be removed to obtain a clear Hofstadter butterfly. While is known as the Chern number, our theory identifies as a dual Chern number for the momentum space, which corresponds to a quantized Lorentz susceptibility .