Magnetization of the Metallic Surface States in Topological Insulators

TL;DR

This paper investigates how small non-relativistic contributions affect the magnetization and quantum Hall effects of surface states in topological insulators, revealing shifts in magnetization patterns and modifications in oscillation amplitudes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed quantum mechanical analysis of the impact of a sub-dominant Schrödinger term on the magnetization and Hall quantization in topological insulator surface states, including analytic corrections.

Findings

Magnetization patterns shift due to the Schrödinger term.

Hall plateau quantization remains half-integer despite shifts.

Magnetic oscillation amplitudes and phase are slightly modified.

Abstract

We calculate the magnetization of the helical metallic surface states of a topological insulator. We account for the presence of a small sub-dominant Schr{\"o}dinger piece in the Hamiltonian in addition to the dominant Dirac contribution. This breaks particle-hole symmetry. The cross-section of the upper Dirac cone narrows while that of the lower cone broadens. The sawtooth pattern seen in the magnetization of the pure Dirac limit as a function of chemical potential ($\mu$) is shifted; but, the quantization of the Hall plateaus remains half integral. This is verified by taking the derivative of the magnetization with respect to $\mu$. We compare our results with those when the non-relativistic piece dominates over the relativistic contribution and the quantization is integral. Analytic results for the magnetic oscillations are obtained where we include a first order correction in the ratio of non-relativistic to relativistic magnetic energy scales. Our fully quantum mechanical derivations confirm the expectation of semiclassical theory except for a small correction to the expected phase. There is a change in the overall amplitude of the magnetic oscillations. The Dingle and temperature factors are modified.