Interacting topological phases in thin films of topological mirror Kondo insulators

TL;DR

This paper explores the effects of strong interactions on thin films of topological mirror Kondo insulators, revealing a complex phase diagram with various topological and symmetry-breaking phases, and potential for experimental realization.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed phase diagram of interacting TMKI thin films, identifying regimes with bosonic SPT phases and mirror symmetry breaking, and studies boundary defects.

Findings

Rich phase diagram with different mirror Chern numbers

Interaction regimes mimicking bosonic SPT phases

Boundary domain-wall defect analysis

Abstract

We study the interaction effects on thin films of topological mirror Kondo insulators (TMKI), where the strong interaction is expected to play an important role. Our study has led to the following results: (1) We identify a rich phase diagram of non-interacting TMKI with different mirror Chern numbers in the monolayer and bilayer thin films; (2) We obtain the phase diagram with interaction and identify the regimes of interaction parameters to mimic bosonic symmetry protected topological phases with either gapless bosonic modes or spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking at the boundary; (3) For the spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking boundary, we also study various domain-wall defects between different mirror symmetry breaking order parameters at the boundary. Our results reveal that the thin film TMKI serves as an intriguing platform for the experimental studies of interacting topological phases.