Fate of a topological invariant for correlated lattice electrons at finite temperature

Abstract

Electrons on a two-dimensional (2$d$) lattice which is exposed to a strong uniform magnetic field show intriguing physical phenomena. The spectrum of such systems exhibits a complex (multi-)band structure known as Hofstadter's butterfly. For fillings at which the system is a band insulator one observes a quantized integer-valued Hall conductivity $\sigma_{xy}$ corresponding to a topological invariant, the first Chern number $\mathcal{C}_1$. This is robust against many-body interactions as long as no changes in the gap structure occur. Strictly speaking, this stability holds only at zero temperatures $T$ while for $T>0$ correlation effects have to be taken into account. In this work, we address this question by presenting a dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) study of the Hubbard model in a uniform magnetic field. The inclusion of local correlations at finite temperature leads to (i) a shrinking of the integer plateaus of $\sigma_{xy}$ as a function of the chemical potential and (ii) eventually to a deviation from these integer values. We demonstrate that these effects can be related to a correlation-driven narrowing and filling of the band gap, respectively.