Strong correlations in ABC-stacked trilayer graphene: Moir\'{e} is important

Abstract

Recent experiments on multilayer graphene materials have discovered a plethora of correlated phases, including ferromagnetism and superconductivity, in the absence of a moir\'{e} potential. These findings pose an intriguing question of whether an underlying moir\'{e} potential plays a key role in determining the phases realizable in tunable two-dimensional quantum materials, or whether it merely acts as a weak periodic potential that perturbs an underlying correlated many body state. In this work, employing a Hartree-Fock mean field analysis, we examine this question theoretically by quantitatively studying the effects of an hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) substrate on ABC-stacked trilayer graphene (ABC-TLG). For the topologically trivial regime, we find that the moir\'{e} potential leads to a strong suppression of the ferromagnetism of the underlying metal. Further, band insulators appear solely at full filling of the moir\'{e} unit cell, with a moir\'{e} potential stronger than is conventionally assumed. Thus the observed correlated insulating phases in ABC-TLG aligned with h-BN cannot be understood through band folding of the ferromagnetic metal found without the moir\'{e} potential. For the topologically non-trivial regime, we discover the appearance of prominent incompressible states when fractional hole fillings (of the moir\'{e} unit cell) coincide with the occurrence of fractional-metallic states in the moir\'{e}-less setting, as well as a slight weakening of the ferromagnetic nature of the phases; however this once again requires a moir\'{e} potential stronger than is conventionally assumed. Our findings highlight the importance of interactions in renormalizing the electronic bandstructure, and emphasizes the key role played by the moir\'{e} potential in determining the strong correlation physics.