Exchange interactions of a Wigner crystal in a magnetic field and Berry curvature: Multiparticle tunneling through complex trajectories
Phys. Rev. B 113, 144434 – Published 24 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lj9b-3myv
Abstract
We study how an out-of-plane magnetic field and a Berry curvature modify the exchange interactions in a two-dimensional Wigner crystal (WC) using a semiclassical large- expansion. When only a magnetic field is present, ring-exchange processes arise from multiparticle tunneling through complex trajectories which constitute complex instanton solutions of the coordinate-space path integral. To leading order in , each exchange constant acquires an Aharonov-Bohm phase along the zero-field tunneling trajectory. When a Berry curvature is present, the multiparticle tunneling must be considered in a complexified phase space . To leading order in acquires a Berry phase along a purely imaginary momentum-space trajectory. When and are both present, in addition to having both Aharonov-Bohm and Berry phases, the exchange magnitude is also exponentially modified due to an effective-mass renormalization. These effects could be relevant for the WC and proximate phases recently observed in rhombohedral multilayer graphene.