Fractional Chern Insulators in Topological Flat Bands with Higher Chern Number

Abstract

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.