We study the entanglement spectrum of noninteracting band insulators, which can be computed from the two-point correlation function, when restricted to one part of the system. In particular, we analyze a type of partitioning of the system that maintains its full translational symmetry, by tracing over a subset of local degrees of freedom, such as sublattice sites or spin orientations. The corresponding single-particle entanglement spectrum is the band structure of an entanglement Hamiltonian in the Brillouin zone. We find that the hallmark of a nontrivial topological phase is a gapless entanglement spectrum with an ``entanglement Fermi surface.'' Furthermore, we derive a relation between the entanglement spectrum and the quantum geometry of Bloch states contained in the Fubini-Study metric. The results are illustrated with lattice models of Chern insulators and
Z2 topological insulators.
We propose characterization of the three-dimensional topological insulator by using the Chern number for the entanglement Hamiltonian (entanglement Chern number). Here we take the extensive spin partition of the system, that pulls out the quantum entanglement between up spin and down spin of the many-body ground state. In three dimensions, the topological insulator phase is described by the section entanglement Chern number, which is the entanglement Chern number for a periodic plane in the Brillouin zone. The section entanglement Chern number serves as an interpolation of the
Z2 invariants defined on time-reversal invariant planes. We find that the change of the section entanglement Chern number protects the Weyl point of the entanglement Hamiltonian, and the parity of the number of Weyl points distinguishes the strong topological insulator phase from the weak topological insulator phase.
We analyze translationally invariant insulators with inversion symmetry that fall outside the current established classification of topological insulators. These insulators exhibit no edge or surface modes in the energy spectrum and hence they are not edge metals when the Fermi level is in the bulk gap. However, they do exhibit protected modes in the entanglement spectrum localized on the cut between two entangled regions. Their entanglement entropy cannot be made to vanish adiabatically, and hence the insulators can be called topological. There is a direct connection between the inversion eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian band structure and the midgap states in the entanglement spectrum. The classification of protected entanglement levels is given by an integer
N, which is the difference between the negative inversion eigenvalues at inversion symmetric points in the Brillouin zone, taken in sets of 2. When the Hamiltonian describes a Chern insulator or a nontrivial time-reversal invariant topological insulator, the entirety of the entanglement spectrum exhibits spectral flow. If the Chern number is zero for the former, or time reversal is broken in the latter, the entanglement spectrum does not have spectral flow, but, depending on the inversion eigenvalues, can still exhibit protected midgap bands similar to impurity bands in normal semiconductors. Although spectral flow is broken (implying the absence of real edge or surface modes in the original Hamiltonian), the midgap entanglement bands cannot be adiabatically removed, and the insulator is ``topological.'' We analyze the linear response of these insulators and provide proofs and examples of when the inversion eigenvalues determine a nontrivial charge polarization, a quantum Hall effect, an anisotropic three-dimensional (3D) quantum Hall effect, or a magnetoelectric polarization. In one dimension, we establish a link between the product of the inversion eigenvalues of all occupied bands at all inversion symmetric points and charge polarization. In two dimensions, we prove a link between the product of the inversion eigenvalues and the parity of the Chern number of the occupied bands. In three dimensions, we find a topological constraint on the product of the inversion eigenvalues thereby showing that some
3D materials are protected topological metals; we show the link between the inversion eigenvalues and the
3D Quantum Hall Effect, and analyze the magnetoelectric polarization ($\ensuremath{\theta}$ vacuum) in the absence of time-reversal symmetry.
We consider integer quantum Hall states and calculate the bulk entanglement spectrum by formulating the correlation matrix in the guiding center representation. Our analytical approach is based on the strategy of redefining the inner product of states in the Hilbert space, via a projection operator, to take care of the restriction imposed by the (rectangle-pixeled) checkerboard partition. The resultant correlation matrix contains various couplings between states of different guiding centers parameterized by the magnetic length and the pixel size. Given a fixed magnetic field, we find various patterns of band crossings by tuning the pixel size (quantified by the flux $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ threading each pixel) and by changing the filling factor $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\in}\mathbb{N}$ (determined by the Fermi level). When $\ensuremath{\nu}=1$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=2\ensuremath{\pi}$, or $\ensuremath{\nu}=2$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=\ensuremath{\pi}$, one Dirac band crossing is found. For $\ensuremath{\nu}=1$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=\ensuremath{\pi}$, the band crossings are in the form of a nodal line, enclosing the Brillouin zone. As for $\ensuremath{\nu}=2$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=2\ensuremath{\pi}$, the doubled Dirac point, or the quadratic point, is seen. Additionally, we infer that the quadratic point is protected by the
C4 symmetry of the pixel since it evolves into two separate Dirac points when the symmetry is lowered to
C2. We also identify the emerging symmetries responsible for the symmetric bulk entanglement spectra, which are absent in the underlying quantum Hall states.
We investigate the behavior of a topological Chern insulator in the presence of disorder, with a focus on its entanglement spectrum (EtS) constructed from the ground state. For systems with symmetries, the EtS was shown to contain explicit information about the topological universality class revealed by sorting the EtS against the conserved quantum numbers. In the absence of any symmetry, we demonstrate that statistical methods such as the level statistics of the EtS can be equally insightful, allowing us to distinguish when an insulator is in a topological or trivial phase and to map the boundary between the two phases. The phase diagram of a Chern insulator is explicitly computed as function of Fermi level (EF) and disorder strength using the level statistics of the EtS and energy spectrum, together with a computation of the Chern number (C) via a new, efficient real-space formula.
Lattice models forming bands with higher Chern number offer an intriguing possibility for new phases of matter with no analogue in continuum Landau levels. Here, we establish the existence of a number of new bulk insulating states at fractional filling in flat bands with a Chern number C = N > 1, forming in a recently proposed pyrochlore model with strong spin-orbit coupling. In particular, we find compelling evidence for a series of stable states at ν = 1/(2N + 1) for fermions as well as bosonic states at ν = 1/(N + 1). By examining the topological ground state degeneracies and the excitation structure as well as the entanglement spectrum, we conclude that these states are Abelian. We also explicitly demonstrate that these states are nevertheless qualitatively different from conventional quantum Hall (multilayer) states due to the novel properties of the underlying band structure.