Interaction Correction to the Magneto-Electric Polarizability of $Z_{2}$ Topological Insulators

TL;DR

This paper investigates how weak interactions affect the surface Hall conductivity of $Z_{2}$ topological insulators, revealing non-universal corrections but preserving quantization in thin films.

Contribution

It provides an explicit calculation showing interaction corrections to surface Hall conductivity and demonstrates cancellation effects in thin films.

Findings

Interaction introduces non-universal corrections to surface Hall conductivity.

In thin films, corrections cancel out, preserving quantization.

Quantized anomalous Hall effect remains robust in magnetically doped topological insulators.

Abstract

When time-reversal symmetry is weakly broken and interactions are neglected, the surface of a $Z_{2}$ topological insulator supports a half-quantized Hall conductivity $\sigma_{S} = e^{2}/(2h)$. A surface Hall conductivity in an insulator is equivalent to a bulk magneto-electric polarizability, i.e. to a magnetic field dependent charge polarization. By performing an explicit calculation for the case in which the surface is approximated by a two-dimensional massive Dirac model and time-reversal symmetry is broken by weak ferromagnetism in the bulk, we demonstrate that there is a non-universal interaction correction to $\sigma_{S}$. For thin films interaction corrections to the top and bottom surface Hall conductivities cancel, however, implying that there is no correction to the quantized anomalous Hall effect in magnetically doped topological insulators.