Dynamical Generation of Topological Masses in Dirac Fermions

Abstract

We report discovery of a topological Mott insulator in strongly-correlated Dirac semimetals. Such an interaction-driven topological state has been theoretically proposed but not yet observed with unbiased large scale numerical simulations. In our model, interactions between electrons are mediated by Ising spins in a transverse field. The results indicate that the topological mass term is dynamically generated and the resulting quantum phase transition belongs to the (2+1)D $N=8$ chiral Ising universality class. These conclusions stem from large scale sign free quantum Monte Carlo simulations.

6 pages and three figures in main text; 13 pages and 13 figures in Supplemental Material