Anomalous open orbits in Hofstadter spectrum of Chern insulator

Haijiao Ji, Noah F. Q. Yuan, Hua Jiang, Haiwen Liu, X. C. Xie

Published 2023-03-26Version 1

The nontrivial band topology can influence the Hofstadter spectrum. We investigate the Hofstadter spectrum for various models of Chern insulators under a rational flux $\frac{\phi_{0}}{q}$, here $\phi_{0}=\frac{h}{e}$ and $q$ being an integer. We find two major features. First, the number of splitting subbands is $|q-C|$ with Chern number $C$. Second, the anomalous open-orbit subbands with Chern numbers $q-1$ and $-q-1$ emerge, which are beyond the parameter window $(-q/2,q/2)$ of the Diophantine equation studied by Thouless-Kohmoto-Nightingale-den Nijs [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{49}, 405 (1982)]. These two findings are explained by semiclassical dynamics. We propose that the number of splitting subbands can be utilized to determine Chern number in cold atom systems, and the open-orbit subbands can provide routes to study exotic features beyond the Landau level physics.