Composite fermions description of fractional topological insulators

Abstract

We propose a $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ classification of Abelian time-reversal fractional topological insulators in terms of the composite fermions picture. We consider the standard toy model where spin up and down electrons are subjected to opposite magnetic fields and only electrons of the same spin interact via a repulsive force. By applying the composite fermions approach to this time-reversal symmetric system, we are able to obtain a hierarchy of topological insulators with spin Hall conductance $\sigma_{s}=\frac{e}{2\pi}\frac{p}{2mp+1} $, being $p,m \in\mathbb{N}$. They show stable edge states only for odd $p$, as a direct consequence of the Kramer's theorem.