Landau level quantization of Dirac electrons on the sphere

Abstract

Interactions in Landau levels can stabilize new phases of matter, such as fractionally quantized Hall states. Numerical studies of these systems mostly require compact manifolds like the sphere or a torus. For massive dispersions, a formalism for the lowest Landau level on the sphere was introduced by Haldane (1983). Graphene and surfaces of 3D topological insulators, however, display massless (Dirac) dispersions, and hence require a different description. We generalize a formalism previously developed for Dirac electrons on the sphere in zero field to include the effect of an external, uniform magnetic field.