The quantum geometric origin of capacitance in insulators

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Komissarov, Ilia, Holder, Tobias, Queiroz, Raquel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Komissarov, Ilia
Holder, Tobias
Queiroz, Raquel
author_facet Komissarov, Ilia
Holder, Tobias
Queiroz, Raquel
contents In band insulators, where the Fermi surface is absent, adiabatic transport is allowed only due to the geometry of the Hilbert space. By driving the system at a small but finite frequency $ω$, transport is still expected to depend sensitively on the quantum geometry. Here we show that this expectation is correct and can be made precise by expressing the Kubo formula for conductivity as the variation of the \emph{time-dependent polarization} with respect to the applied field. In particular, a little appreciated effect is that at linear order in frequency, the longitudinal conductivity results from an intrinsic capacitance, determined by the ratio of the quantum metric and the spectral gap. We demonstrate that this intrinsic capacitance has a measurable effect in a wide range of insulators with non-negligible metric, including the electron gas in a quantizing magnetic field, the gapped bands of hBN-aligned twisted bilayer graphene, and obstructed atomic insulators such as diamond whose large refractive index has a topological origin. We also discuss the influence of quantum geometry on the dielectric constant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_08035
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The quantum geometric origin of capacitance in insulators
Komissarov, Ilia
Holder, Tobias
Queiroz, Raquel
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
In band insulators, where the Fermi surface is absent, adiabatic transport is allowed only due to the geometry of the Hilbert space. By driving the system at a small but finite frequency $ω$, transport is still expected to depend sensitively on the quantum geometry. Here we show that this expectation is correct and can be made precise by expressing the Kubo formula for conductivity as the variation of the \emph{time-dependent polarization} with respect to the applied field. In particular, a little appreciated effect is that at linear order in frequency, the longitudinal conductivity results from an intrinsic capacitance, determined by the ratio of the quantum metric and the spectral gap. We demonstrate that this intrinsic capacitance has a measurable effect in a wide range of insulators with non-negligible metric, including the electron gas in a quantizing magnetic field, the gapped bands of hBN-aligned twisted bilayer graphene, and obstructed atomic insulators such as diamond whose large refractive index has a topological origin. We also discuss the influence of quantum geometry on the dielectric constant.
title The quantum geometric origin of capacitance in insulators
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08035