Interaction-driven plateau transition between integer and fractional Chern Insulators

Abstract

We present numerical evidence of an interaction-driven quantum Hall plateau transition between a $|C|>1$ Chern Insulator (CI) and a $\nu = 1/3$ Laughlin state in the Harper-Hofstadter model. We study the model at flux densities $p/q$, where the lowest Landau level (LLL) manifold comprises $p$ magnetic sub-bands. For weak interactions, the model realises integer CIs corresponding to filled sub-bands, while strongly interacting candidate states include fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states at LLL filling fractions $\nu=r/t$. These phases may compete at the same particle density when $p=t$. As a concrete example, we numerically explore the physics at flux density $n_{\phi} = 3/11$, where we show evidence that a direct transition occurs between a CI and a $\nu = 1/3$ Laughlin state, which we characterise in terms of its critical, topological and entanglement properties. We also show that strong interactions generically stabilise a $\nu = 1/3$ Laughlin state even when the LLL is split into multiple bands, and introduce a powerful methodology to extract its topological entanglement entropy by exploiting the scaling of magnetic length with $n_\phi$.