Ferroelectric Altermagnetic Chern Insulator in magnetic field: electrical control of the Chern number

Abstract

We investigate electrically controllable Chern topology in a two-dimensional compensated (d)-wave altermagnet described by a lattice-regularized Bernevig--Hughes--Zhang model. In the altermagnetic reference state, the two Kramers sectors acquire momentum-dependent spin splitting and opposite sector Chern numbers, while the combined $C_{4z}\mathcal T$ symmetry enforces a vanishing total charge Chern number. We show that this hidden topological structure can be activated by orbital-selective magnetic coupling and independently tuned by ferroelectric orbital hybridization. The magnetic coupling removes the sector cancellation and generates $C=\pm1$ and $\pm2$ phases, whereas the polar distortion shifts the Dirac gap closing away from high-symmetry momenta and enables electrical transitions such as $C=0\rightarrow-1$ and $C=1\rightarrow2$. The resulting phases exhibit the expected chiral edge-state multiplicity and quantized anomalous Hall conductivity. Their topology is further reflected in the orbital magnetization through the in-gap relation $\partial_\mu \widetilde M_z=-C$. Finally, we show that the Chern phases remain robust against transverse Kramers-sector mixing and symmetry-allowed inversion-asymmetric spin--orbit coupling. These results establish a symmetry-based route to electrically tunable Chern insulating phases in compensated altermagnets.