Topological phonons in anomalous Hall crystals

TL;DR

This paper investigates the topological properties of phonons in anomalous Hall crystals, revealing that collective modes can become topologically nontrivial, which could serve as experimental signatures of AHC phases.

Contribution

It demonstrates that phonons in AHCs can be topologically nontrivial and identifies signatures of phase transitions through band inversions and changes in phonon Chern numbers.

Findings

Topological phonons emerge in AHCs during phase transition.

Band inversions among collective modes signal topological changes.

Phonon Chern number changes sign in the AHC phase.

Abstract

Recent experiments on few-layer graphene structures have reported indirect signatures of anomalous Hall crystals (AHCs), but the need for a top gate to stabilize the phase precludes direct imaging of the emergent electronic lattice. This situation necessitates the investigation of alternative signatures of AHCs. The gapless phonons of the emergent electronic lattice provide a clear distinction from conventional quantum Hall states, but it may be difficult to disentangle these phonons from the plethora of other possible low-lying modes. Intriguingly, the quantum geometry of the underlying electronic ground state can imprint on the collective modes, possibly leading the phonons themselves to be topological. Were this the case, the resulting neutral chiral edge modes would provide a further signature of an AHC. Using time-dependent Hartree-Fock, we compute the spectra of collective modes of Wigner crystals (WCs) and AHCs arising in minimal models and study the topology of the phonons and low-lying excitons. Across the WC to AHC transition, we observe a series of band inversions among collective modes, producing topological phonons and excitons, and a sharp sign change in the phonon Chern number upon entering the AHC phase. We conclude by discussing the relevance of collective mode topology to experiments on candidate systems for AHCs.