Variational mapping of Chern bands to Landau levels: Application to fractional Chern insulators in twisted <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>MoTe</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math>

Abstract

Recent experimental breakthroughs have identified fractional Chern insulators (FCIs) in twisted bilayer MoTe${}_{2}$ ($t$MoTe${}_{2}$) at zero external magnetic field. The authors propose here a variational approach to map Bloch Chern bands in $t$MoTe${}_{2}$ to generalized Landau levels. This mapping sheds light on the formation mechanism and microscopic properties of FCIs in $t$MoTe${}_{2}$, offering a pathway to apply insights from fractional quantum Hall states to study FCIs in moir\'e materials.

Topics & Concepts