From Rhombohedral Graphene to Anomalous Hall Crystals

Speaker: 
Daniel Parker
Institution: 
University of California, San Diego
Date: 
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Time: 
11:00 am
Location: 
NSII 1201

Abstract: Recent experiments on rhombohedral multilayer graphene (RMG) with a substrate-induced moire potential have identified both Chern insulators and fractional Quantum Hall states at zero magnetic field, whose origin is presently mysterious. The operative degrees of freedom are in the valence band minima that feature strong correlations and non-trivial quantum geometry. The first part of this talk will study a microscopic model of RMG. I will show that, even without a moire potential, interactions can spontaneously break continuous translation symmetry and time-reversal symmetry at the mean-field level to produce an electron crystal with finite Chern number. This new state of matter is called an anomalous Hall crystal. Many-body numerics at fractional fillings then reveal fractionalized ground states, consistent with experiments. I will show this result holds robustly for 4-6 layers, for a range of displacement fields, and discuss the role of hBN alignment orientation. The second part of the talk will introduce λ-jellium, a minimal extension of the jellium model whose interaction strength and Berry curvature are independently tunable. I will show that it hosts an anomalous Hall crystal phase that is stable to quantum fluctuations with crystallization at much lower interaction strengths than in Wigner crystals.

Host: 
Thomas Scaffidi