Topological Fermi liquids from Coulomb interactions in the doped honeycomb lattice

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Sep 2;107(10):106402. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.106402. Epub 2011 Sep 2.

Abstract

We propose a simple method for obtaining time reversal symmetry (T) broken phases in simple lattice models based on enlarging the unit cell. As an example we study the honeycomb lattice with nearest neighbor hopping and a local nearest neighbor Coulomb interaction V. We show that when the unit cell is enlarged to host six atoms that permits Kekulé distortions, self-consistent currents spontaneously form creating nontrivial magnetic configurations with total zero flux at high electron densities. A very rich phase diagram is obtained within a variational mean field approach that includes metallic phases with broken time reversal symmetry (T). The predominant (T) breaking configuration is an anomalous Hall phase, a realization of a topological Fermi liquid.