arXiv · 2510.01727
Orbital Magnetization of Correlated States in Twisted Bilayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides
Abstract
Recent observations of quantum anomalous Hall effects in moir\'e systems have revealed the emergence of interaction-driven ferromagnetism with significant orbital contributions. To capture this physics, we extend the modern theory of orbital magnetization to Hartree-Fock states and show that the standard expression remains valid with Hartree-Fock orbitals and Hamiltonians. We then benchmark our theory against the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model in a weak field, which yields excellent agreement with direct numerical calculations. Applying our theory to twisted MoTe$_2$ bilayers, we find orbital magnetization of order one Bohr magneton per moir\'e cell with a non-monotonic twist-angle dependence. Our work establishes a general theory of orbital magnetization in interacting moir\'e systems and provides quantitative guidance for interpreting recent experiments.
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Xiaoyu Liu, Chong Wang, Haoran Chen, Xiao-Wei Zhang, Ting Cao, Di Xiao. 2025-10-02. Orbital Magnetization of Correlated States in Twisted Bilayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides. https://doi.org/10.1103/k46f-8m8t
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