Bulk-edge correspondence of Stiefel-Whitney and Euler insulators through the entanglement spectrum and cutting procedure

Abstract

We propose an unconventional bulk-edge correspondence for two-dimensional Stiefel-Whitney insulators and Euler insulators, which are topological insulators protected by the $PT$ symmetry. We find that, although the energy spectrum under the open boundary condition is generally gapped, the entanglement spectrum is gapless when the Stiefel-Whitney or Euler class is nonzero. The robustness of the gapless spectrum for Stiefel-Whitney insulator can be understood through an emergent anti-unitary particle-hole symmetry. For the Euler insulators, we propose a conjecture, which is supported by our numerical calculation, that the Euler class is equal to the number of crossing in the entanglement spectrum, taking into account the degree of the crossings. We also discuss that these crossings of the entanglement spectrum are related to the gap closing points in the cutting procedure, which is the energy spectrum as the magnitude of the boundary hopping is varied.