IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eurphb/v79y2011i2p121-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The insulating state of matter: a geometrical theory

Author

Listed:
  • R. Resta

Abstract

In 1964 Kohn published the milestone paper “Theory of the insulating state”, according to which insulators and metals differ in their ground state. Even before the system is excited by any probe, a different organization of the electrons is present in the ground state and this is the key feature discriminating between insulators and metals. However, the theory of the insulating state remained somewhat incomplete until the late 1990s; this review addresses the recent developments. The many-body ground wavefunction of any insulator is characterized by means of geometrical concepts (Berry phase, connection, curvature, Chern number, quantum metric). Among them, it is the quantum metric which sharply characterizes the insulating state of matter. The theory deals on a common ground with several kinds of insulators: band insulators, Mott insulators, Anderson insulators, quantum Hall insulators, Chern and topological insulators. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

Suggested Citation

  • R. Resta, 2011. "The insulating state of matter: a geometrical theory," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 79(2), pages 121-137, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eurphb:v:79:y:2011:i:2:p:121-137
    DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2010-10874-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1140/epjb/e2010-10874-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1140/epjb/e2010-10874-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:eurphb:v:79:y:2011:i:2:p:121-137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.