Hearing the shape of a Dirac drum: Dual quantum Hall states on curved surfaces

Abstract

The geometry of a physical system is intimately related to its spectral properties, a concept colloquially referred to as "hearing the shape of a drum". Three-dimensional topological insulator nanowires in a strong magnetic field $B$ generally host Dirac-type quantum Hall (QH) surface states. The surface itself is shaped by spatial variations of the wires' cross section, yielding a curved geometrical background, the "drum", with imprints in the corresponding QH spectra. We show that the latter are composed of two different classes. The first one is asymptotically insensitive to the surface shape, scaling as $B^{1/2}$, like regular planar QH states. Instead, the second has an asymptotic $B$-field dependence intimately related to the wire geometry. We further demonstrate that an (axial-symmetric) curved nanowire surface possesses a reciprocal partner surface, such that the respective QH spectra are dual to each other upon exchanging angular momentum and magnetic flux. Notably, a cone-shaped nanowire, and the Corbino geometry as its limiting case, has a reciprocal partner with a dual QH spectrum that is $B$-field independent, with corresponding non-magnetic QH-type states. We support our analytical findings by numerical results for $B$-field ranges and wire geometries within reach of current experiment.