All "Magic Angles" Are "Stable" Topological

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that all magic angles in twisted bilayer graphene correspond to stable topological phases, with a focus on the role of emergent symmetries and comprehensive ab-initio calculations confirming the topological nature of the low-energy bands.

Contribution

The study proves the topological stability of the gapped bands at magic angles using an approximate particle-hole symmetry and provides a minimal 4-band model for low-energy physics.

Findings

Topological index is stabilized by magnetic symmetry.

Ab-initio calculations confirm the topological nature across small angles.

Complex evolution of band symmetry observed in large-scale simulations.

Abstract

We show that the electronic structure of the low-energy bands in the small angle-twisted bilayer graphene consists of a series of semi-metallic and topological phases. In particular we are able to prove, using an approximate low-energy particle-hole symmetry, that the gapped set of bands that exist around all magic angles has what we conjecture to be a stable topological index stabilized by a magnetic symmetry and reflected in the odd winding of the Wilson loop in the Moir\'e BZ. The approximate, emergent particle-hole symmetry is essential to the topology of graphene: when strongly broken, non-topological phases can appear. Our paper underpins topology as the crucial ingredient to the description of low-energy graphene. We provide a $4$-band short range tight-binding model whose $2$ lower bands have the same topology, symmetry, and flatness as those of the twisted graphene, and which can be used as an effective low-energy model. We then perform large-scale ($11000$ atoms per unit cell, 40 days per $\bf k$-point computing time) ab-initio calculations of a series of small angles, from $3^\circ$ to $1^\circ$, which show a more complex and somewhat qualitatively different evolution of the symmetry of the low-energy bands than that of the theoretical Moir\'e model, but which confirms the topological nature of the system. At certain angles, we find no insulating filling in graphene at $-4$ electrons per Moir\'e unit cell. The ab-initio evolution of gaps tends to differ from that of the continuum Moir\'e model.