Topological analysis of the quantum Hall effect in graphene: Dirac-Fermi transition across van Hove singularities and the edge vs bulk quantum numbers

Abstract

Inspired by a recent discovery of a peculiar integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) in graphene, we study QHE on a honeycomb lattice in terms of the topological quantum number, with two-fold interests: First, how the zero-mass Dirac QHE around the center of the tight-binding band crosses over to the ordinary finite-mass fermion QHE around the band edges. Second, how the bulk QHE is related with the edge QHE for the entire spectrum including Dirac and ordinary behaviors. We find the following: (i) The zero-mass Dirac QHE persists up to the van Hove singularities, at which the ordinary fermion behavior abruptly takes over. Here a technique developed in the lattice gauge theory enabled us to calculate the behavior of the topological number over the entire spectrum. This result indicates a robustness of the topological quantum number, and should be observable if the chemical potential can be varied over a wide range in graphene. (ii) To see if the honeycomb lattice is singular in producing the anomalous QHE, we have systematically surveyed over square-honeycomb-$π$-flux lattices, which is scanned by introducing a diagonal transfer $t'$. We find that the massless Dirac QHE forms a critical line, that is, the presence of Dirac cones in the Brillouin zone is preserved by the inclusion of $t'$ and the Dirac region sits side by side with ordinary one persists all through the transformation. (iii) We have compared the bulk QHE number obtained by an adiabatic continuity of the Chern number across transformation and numerically obtained edge QHE numbers calculated from the whole energy spectra for sample with edges, which shows that the bulk QHE number coincides, as in ordinary lattices, with the edge QHE number throughout the lattice transformation.