Orbital magnetization of correlated electrons with arbitrary band topology (1404.3673v3)

Abstract: Spin-orbit coupling introduces chirality into electronic structure. This can have profound effects on the magnetization induced by orbital motion of electrons. Here we derive a formula for the orbital magnetization of interacting electrons in terms of the full Green's function and vertex functions. The formula is applied within dynamical mean-field theory to the Kane-Mele-Hubbard model that allows both topological and trivial insulating phases. We study the insulating and metallic phases in the presence of an exchange magnetic field. In the presence of interactions, the orbital magnetization of the quantum spin Hall insulating phase with inversion symmetry is renormalized by the bulk quasi-particle weight. The orbital magnetization vanishes for the in-plane antiferromagnetic phase with trivial topology. In the metallic phase, the enhanced effective spin-orbit coupling due to the interaction sometimes leads to an enhancement of the orbital magnetization. However, at low doping, magnetization is suppressed at large interaction strengths.