Hall conductance of two-band systems in a quantized field

Abstract

Kubo formula gives a linear response of a quantum system to external fields, which are classical and weak with respect to the energy of the system. In this work, we take the quantum nature of the external field into account, and define a Hall conductance to characterize the linear response of a two-band system to the quantized field. The theory is then applied to topological insulators. Comparisons with the traditional Hall conductance are presented and discussed.