Polarization and orbital magnetization in Chern insulators: A microscopic perspective

Abstract

We derive macroscopic expressions for the polarization and orbital magnetization of a Chern insulator in its zero-temperature ground state using a previously developed formalism for treating microscopic polarization and magnetization fields in extended media. In the limit of a topologically trivial insulator, our results reduce to those of the "modern theories of polarization and magnetization." In a Chern insulator, however, we find a generically nonvanishing microscopic free current density, the macroscopic average of which vanishes. Moreover, the expression that we obtain for the polarization is qualitatively similar to that of the "modern theory," while the expressions for the orbital magnetization fundamentally differ; the manner in which they differ elucidates the distinct philosophies of these theoretical frameworks.