Quantum Geometry and Stabilization of Fractional Chern Insulators Far from the Ideal Limit.

In the presence of strong electronic interactions, a partially filled Chern band may stabilize a fractional Chern insulator (FCI) state, the zero-field analog of the fractional quantum Hall phase. While FCIs have long been hypothesized, feasible solid-state realizations only recently emerged, largely due to the rise of moiré materials. In these systems, the quantum geometry of the electronic bands plays a critical role in stabilizing the FCI in the presence of competing correlated phases.

Anderson's Theorem for Correlated Insulating States in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.

The emergence of correlated insulating phases in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene exhibits strong sample dependence. Here, we derive an Anderson theorem governing the robustness against disorder of the Kramers intervalley coherent (K-IVC) state, a prime candidate for describing the correlated insulators at even fillings of the moiré flat bands. We find that the K-IVC gap is robust against local perturbations, which are odd under PT, where P and T denote particle-hole conjugation and time reversal, respectively.

Domain Formation Driven by the Entropy of Topological Edge Modes.

In this Letter we study interacting systems with spontaneous discrete symmetry breaking, where the degenerate symmetry-broken states are topologically distinct gapped phases. Edge modes appear at domain walls between the two topological phases. In the presence of a weak disorder field conjugate to the order parameter, we find that the entropy of the edge modes drives a thermal transition between a gapped uniform phase and a phase with a disorder-induced domain structure.

Theory of Correlated Insulators and Superconductivity in Twisted Bilayer Graphene.

We introduce and analyze a model that sheds light on the interplay between correlated insulating states, superconductivity, and flavor-symmetry breaking in magic angle twisted bilayer graphene. Using a variational mean-field theory, we determine the normal-state phase diagram of our model as a function of the band filling. The model features robust insulators at even integer fillings, occasional weaker insulators at odd integer fillings, and a pattern of flavor-symmetry breaking at noninteger fillings.

Fractional Conductance in Strongly Interacting 1D Systems.

We study one-dimensional clean systems with few channels and strong electron-electron interactions. We find that in several circumstances, even when time-reversal symmetry holds, they may lead to two-terminal fractional quantized conductance and fractional shot noise. The condition on the commensurability of the Fermi momenta of the different channels and the strength of the interactions resulting in such remarkable phenomena are explored using Abelian bosonization.