Finite-temperature conductivity and magnetoconductivity of topological insulators

The electronic transport experiments on topological insulators exhibit a dilemma. A negative cusp in magnetoconductivity is widely believed as a quantum transport signature of the topological surface states, which are immune from localization and exhibit the weak antilocalization. However, the measured conductivity drops logarithmically when lowering temperature, showing a typical feature of the weak localization as in ordinary disordered metals. Here, we present a conductivity formula for massless and massive Dirac fermions as a function of magnetic field and temperature, by taking into account the electron-electron interaction and quantum interference simultaneously. The formula reconciles the dilemma by explicitly clarifying that the temperature dependence of the conductivity is dominated by the interaction while the magnetoconductivity is mainly contributed by the quantum interference. The theory paves the road to quantitatively study the transport in topological insulators and other two-dimensional Dirac-like systems, such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides, and silicene.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Two-Photon-Exchange Effects and Δ(1232)\Delta(1232) Deformation

The two-photon-exchange (TPE) contribution in $ep\rightarrow ep\pi ^0$ with $W=M_{\Delta}$ and small $Q^2$ is calculated and its corrections to the ratios of electromagnetic transition form factors $R_{EM} = E_{1+}^{(3/2)}/M_{1+}^{(3/2)}$ and $R_{SM} = S_{1+}^{(3/2)}/M_{1+}^{(3/2)}$, are analysed. A simple hadronic model is used to estimate the TPE amplitude. Two phenomenological models, MAID2007 and SAID, are used to approximate the full $ep\rightarrow ep\pi ^0$ cross sections which contain both the TPE and the one-photon-exchange (OPE) contributions. The genuine the OPE amplitude is then extracted from an integral equation by iteration. We find that the TPE contribution is not sensitive to whether MAID or SAID is used as input in the region with $Q^2<2$ GeV$^2$. It gives small correction to $R_{EM}$ while for $R_{SM}$, the correction is about -10\% at small $\epsilon$ and about $1\%$ at large $\epsilon$ for $Q^2\approx2.5$ GeV$^2$. The large correction from TPE at small $\epsilon$ must be included in the analysis to get a reliable extraction of $R_{SM}$.Comment: Talk given at Conference:C16-07-2

Extrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity of a topologically nontrivial conduction band

A key step towards dissipationless transport devices is the quantum anomalous Hall effect, which is characterized by an integer quantized Hall conductance in a ferromagnetic insulator with strong spin-orbit coupling. In this work, the anomalous Hall effect due to the impurity scattering, namely the extrinsic anomalous Hall effect, is studied when the Fermi energy crosses with the topologically nontrivial conduction band of a quantum anomalous Hall system. Two major extrinsic contributions, the side-jump and skew-scattering Hall conductivities, are calculated using the diagrammatic techniques in which both nonmagnetic and magnetic scattering are taken into account simultaneously. The side-jump Hall conductivity changes its sign at a critical sheet carrier density for the nontrivial phase, while it remains sign unchanged for the trivial phase. The critical sheet carrier densities estimated with realistic parameters lie in an experimentally accessible range. The results imply that a quantum anomalous Hall system could be identified in the good-metal regime.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure