Berry-phase description of Topological Crystalline Insulators

We study a class of translational-invariant insulators with discrete rotational symmetry. These insulators have no spin-orbit coupling, and in some cases have no time-reversal symmetry as well, i.e., the relevant symmetries are purely crystalline. Nevertheless, topological phases exist which are distinguished by their robust surface modes. Like many well-known topological phases, their band topology is unveiled by the crystalline analog of Berry phases, i.e., parallel transport across certain non-contractible loops in the Brillouin zone. We also identify certain topological phases without any robust surface modes -- they are uniquely distinguished by parallel transport along bent loops, whose shapes are determined by the symmetry group. Our findings have experimental implications in cold-atom systems, where the crystalline Berry phase has been directly measured.Comment: Latest version is accepted to PR

D-Algebra Structure of Topological Insulators

In the quantum Hall effect, the density operators at different wave-vectors generally do not commute and give rise to the Girvin MacDonald Plazmann (GMP) algebra with important consequences such as ground-state center of mass degeneracy at fractional filling fraction, and W_{1 + \infty} symmetry of the filled Landau levels. We show that the natural generalization of the GMP algebra to higher dimensional topological insulators involves the concept of a D-algebra formed by using the fully anti-symmetric tensor in D-dimensions. For insulators in even dimensional space, the D-algebra is isotropic and closes for the case of constant non-Abelian F(k) ^ F(k) ... ^ F(k) connection (D-Berry curvature), and its structure factors are proportional to the D/2-Chern number. In odd dimensions, the algebra is not isotropic, contains the weak topological insulator index (layers of the topological insulator in one less dimension) and does not contain the Chern-Simons \theta form (F ^ A - 2/3 A ^ A ^ A in 3 dimensions). The Chern-Simons form appears in a certain combination of the parallel transport and simple translation operator which is not an algebra. The possible relation to D-dimensional volume preserving diffeomorphisms and parallel transport of extended objects is also discussed.Comment: 5 page

Holonomic Quantum Computing Based on the Stark Effect

We propose a spin manipulation technique based entirely on electric fields applied to acceptor states in $p$-type semiconductors with spin-orbit coupling. While interesting in its own right, the technique can also be used to implement fault-resilient holonomic quantum computing. We explicitly compute adiabatic transformation matrix (holonomy) of the degenerate states and comment on the feasibility of the scheme as an experimental technique.Comment: 5 page

Twisted Bilayer Graphene: A Phonon Driven Superconductor

We study the electron-phonon coupling in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), which was recently experimentally observed to exhibit superconductivity around the magic twist angle $\theta\approx 1.05^\circ$. We show that phonon-mediated electron electron attraction at the magic angle is strong enough to induce a conventional intervalley pairing between graphene valleys $K$ and $K'$ with a superconducting critical temperature $T_c\sim1K$, in agreement with the experiment. We predict that superconductivity can also be observed in TBG at many other angles $\theta$ and higher electron densities in higher Moir\'e bands, which may also explain the possible granular superconductivity of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. We support our conclusions by \emph{ab initio} calculations.Comment: 6+20 pages, 4+6 figure

Hole Spin Helix: Anomalous Spin Diffusion in Anisotropic Strained Hole Quantum Wells

We obtain the spin-orbit interaction and spin-charge coupled transport equations of a two-dimensional heavy hole gas under the influence of strain and anisotropy. We show that a simple two-band Hamiltonian can be used to describe the holes. In addition to the well-known cubic hole spin-orbit interaction, anisotropy causes a Dresselhaus-like term, and strain causes a Rashba term. We discover that strain can cause a shifting symmetry of the Fermi surfaces for spin up and down holes. We predict an enhanced spin lifetime associated with a spin helix standing wave similar to the Persistent Spin Helix which exists in the two-dimensional electron gas with equal Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions. These results may be useful both for spin-based experimental determination of the Luttinger parameters of the valence band Hamiltonian and for creating long-lived spin excitations

Spin-Singlet Quantum Hall States and Jack Polynomials with a Prescribed Symmetry

We show that a large class of bosonic spin-singlet Fractional Quantum Hall model wave-functions and their quasi-hole excitations can be written in terms of Jack polynomials with a prescribed symmetry. Our approach describes new spin-singlet quantum Hall states at filling fraction nu = 2k/(2r-1) and generalizes the (k,r) spin-polarized Jack polynomial states. The NASS and Halperin spin singlet states emerge as specific cases of our construction. The polynomials express many-body states which contain configurations obtained from a root partition through a generalized squeezing procedure involving spin and orbital degrees of freedom. The corresponding generalized Pauli principle for root partitions is obtained, allowing for counting of the quasihole states. We also extract the central charge and quasihole scaling dimension, and propose a conjecture for the underlying CFT of the (k, r) spin-singlet Jack states.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur