1103.5422 (Yi Li et al.)

Topological insulators with quaternionic analytic Landau levels    [PDF]

Yi Li, Congjun Wu

We study the 3D topological insulators in the continuum by coupling spin-1/2 fermions to the Aharonov-Casher SU(2) gauge field. They exhibit flat Landau levels in which the orbital angular momentum and spin are coupled with a fixed helicity. Each Landau level contributes one branch of gapless helical Dirac modes to the surface spectra, whose topological properties belong to the Z2-class. The lowest Landau level states exhibit the quaternionic analyticity as a generalization of the complex analyticity of the 2D case. The flat Landau levels can be generalized to an arbitrary dimension. Interaction effects and possible experimental realizations are also discussed.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.5422