Topological phase transitions and universality in the Haldane-Hubbard model

Abstract

We study the Haldane-Hubbard model by exact renormalization group techniques. We analytically construct the topological phase diagram, for weak interactions. We predict that many-body interactions induce a shift of the transition line: in particular, repulsive interactions enlarge the topologically nontrivial region. The presence of new intermediate phases, absent in the noninteracting case, is rigorously excluded at weak coupling. Despite the nontrivial renormalization of the wave function and of the Fermi velocity, the conductivity is universal: at the renormalized critical line, both the discontinuity of the transverse conductivity and the longitudinal conductivity are independent of the interaction, thanks to remarkable cancellations due to lattice Ward identities. In contrast to the quantization of the transverse conductivity, the universality of the longitudinal conductivity cannot be explained via topological arguments.