Wilson-loop formulations of the spin polarization and the spin Chern number

Abstract

In this paper, we derive the spin polarization and the spin Chern number in momentum and real spaces in terms of the Wilson loop in each spin sector. For these derivations, the spin matrix in the subspace of occupied or unoccupied states is generalized by the unitary rotation to prevent the spectral gap from closing. In the presence of a finite spin gap, the spin eigenvectors recompose the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian in two spin sectors. A dimensional reduction leads to the charge polarization in each spin sector in terms of the Wilson loop along the effective Brillouin zone (BZ) in one dimension (1D). A linear combination of the charge polarizations defines the spin polarization, which naturally quantifies the spin Chern number in momentum space. It is also shown that the spin Chern number is directly derived from the local Wilson loops on a discrete 2D BZ. The theoretical treatment is further generalized for real space in a supercell framework, which can deal with ordered and disordered systems in a unified manner. In this framework, the spin Chern number in real space is formulated in terms of the Wilson loop around the BZ boundary. These formulations are used to numerically evaluate topological phases in the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang model. Numerical results show an equivalence of the spin Chern number and the ${\mathbb{Z}_2}$ index.