Generalizing Quantum Hall Ferromagnetism to Fractional Chern Bands
Abstract
We study the interplay between quantum Hall ordering and spontaneous sublattice symmetry breaking in multiple Chern number bands at fractional fillings. Primarily we study fermions with repulsive interactions near half filling in a family of square lattice models with flat C=2 bands and a wide band gap. By perturbing about the particularly transparent limit of two decoupled C=1 bands and by exact diagonalization studies of small systems in the more general case, we show that the system generically breaks sublattice symmetry with a transition temperature Tc>0 and additionally exhibits a quantized Hall conductance of e2/h as T → 0. We note the close analogy to quantum Hall ferromagnetism in the multi-component problem and the connection to topological Mott insulators. We also discuss generalizations to other fillings and higher Chern numbers.