Chern numbers for the two-body Hofstadter-Hubbard butterfly

Abstract

We analyze the two-body spectrum within the Hofstadter-Hubbard model on a square lattice through an exact variational ansatz and study the topological properties of its low-lying two-body bound-state branches. In particular we discuss how the Hofstadter-Hubbard butterfly of the two-body branches evolves as a function of onsite interactions and how to efficiently calculate their Chern numbers using the Fukui-Hatsugai-Suzuki approach. Our numerical results are fully consistent with the simple picture that appears in the strong-coupling limit, where the attraction between fermions forms a composite boson characterized by an effective hopping parameter and an effective magnetic-flux ratio.