Torsional Response and Dissipationless Viscosity in Topological Insulators

2011/01/18 by Taylor L. Hughes, Robert G. Leigh, Eduardo Fradkin · 147 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Condensed matter physics #Electron #Graphene research and applications #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Hall effect #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Viscosity #cond-mat.mes-hall #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.107.075502

published in Physical Review Letters 107(7), 075502 (American Physical Society) · 4+epsilon pages, 1 figure

arxiv created 2011/01/18 · openalex publication_date 2011/08/09 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08

Abstract

We consider the viscoelastic response of the electronic degrees of freedom in 2D and 3D topological insulators (TI's). Our primary focus is on the 2D Chern insulator which exhibits a bulk dissipationless viscosity analogous to the quantum Hall viscosity predicted in integer and fractional quantum Hall states. We show that the dissipationless viscosity is the response of a TI to torsional deformations of the underlying lattice geometry. The viscoelastic response also indicates that crystal dislocations in Chern insulators will carry momentum density. We briefly discuss generalizations to 3D which imply that time-reversal invariant TI's will exhibit a quantum Hall viscosity on their surfaces.

Citations

• Topological field theory of time-reversal invariant insulators
• Topological Insulators

Cited by

• Torsional Hall Viscosity of Massive Chern Insulators: Magnetic Field and Momentum Deformations
• Torsional anomalies, Hall viscosity, and bulk-boundary correspondence in topological states
• Electromagnetic and gravitational responses of two-dimensional noninteracting electrons in a background magnetic field
• Low-energy effective theory in the bulk for transport in a topological phase