Path-integral derivation of the equations of the anomalous Hall effect

Abstract

A path integral (Lagrangian formalism) is used to derive the effective equations of motion of the anomalous Hall effect with Berry's phase on the basis of the adiabatic condition $|E_{n\pm1}-E_{n}|\gg 2\pi\hbar/T$, where $T$ is the typical time scale of the slower system and $E_{n}$ is the energy level of the fast system. In the conventional definition of the adiabatic condition with $T\rightarrow {\rm large}$ and fixed energy eigenvalues, no commutation relations are defined for slower variables by the Bjorken-Johnson-Low prescription except for the starting canonical commutators. On the other hand, in a singular limit $|E_{n\pm1}-E_{n}|\rightarrow \infty$ with specific $E_{n}$ kept fixed for which any motions of the slower variables $X_{k}$ can be treated to be adiabatic, the non-canonical dynamical system with deformed commutators and the Nernst effect appear. In the Born-Oppenheimer approximation based on the canonical commutation relations, the equations of motion of the anomalous Hall effect is obtained if one uses an auxiliary variable $X_{k}^{(n)}=X_{k}+{\cal A}^{(n)}_{k}$ with Berry's connection ${\cal A}^{(n)}_{k}$ in the absence of the electromagnetic vector potential $eA_{k}(X)$ and thus without the Nernst effect. It is shown that the gauge symmetries associated with Berry's connection and the electromagnetic vector potential $eA_{k}(X)$ are incompatible in the canonical Hamiltonian formalism. The appearance of the non-canonical dynamical system with the Nernst effect is a consequence of the deformation of the quantum principle to incorporate the two incompatible gauge symmetries.