Disordered flat bands on the kagome lattice

Abstract

In flat bands, the kinetic energy is fully quenched rendering interactions nonperturbative and resulting in complex many-body phenomena, such as the (fractional) quantum Hall effect. Here, the authors study the interplay of correlated disorder, topology, and interactions on the kagome lattice, which hosts a flat band with a quadratic-band touching point and Dirac cones. The authors find exact solutions and demonstrate how to introduce spectral gaps, thus establishing a prime platform to study topological and correlated flat-band physics.