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Fractional Disclination Charge and Discrete Shift in the Hofstadter Butterfly.

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In the presence of crystalline symmetries, topological phases of matter acquire a host of invariants leading to nontrivial quantized responses. Here we study a particular invariant, the discrete shift 𝒮,… Click to show full abstract

In the presence of crystalline symmetries, topological phases of matter acquire a host of invariants leading to nontrivial quantized responses. Here we study a particular invariant, the discrete shift 𝒮, for the square lattice Hofstadter model of free fermions. 𝒮 is associated with a Z_{M} classification in the presence of M-fold rotational symmetry and charge conservation. 𝒮 gives quantized contributions to (i) the fractional charge bound to a lattice disclination and (ii) the angular momentum of the ground state with an additional, symmetrically inserted magnetic flux. 𝒮 forms its own "Hofstadter butterfly," which we numerically compute, refining the usual phase diagram of the Hofstadter model. We propose an empirical formula for 𝒮 in terms of density and flux per plaquette for the Hofstadter bands, and we derive a number of general constraints. We show that bands with the same Chern number may have different values of 𝒮, although odd and even Chern number bands always have half-integer and integer values of 𝒮, respectively.

Keywords: disclination; discrete shift; charge; hofstadter; hofstadter butterfly

Journal Title: Physical review letters
Year Published: 2022

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