Localization properties of Chern insulators

Abstract

We study the localization properties of the equal-time electron Green’s function in a Chern insulator in an arbitrary dimension and with an arbitrary number of bands. We prove that the Green’s function cannot decay super-exponentially if the Hamiltonian is finite-range and the quantum Hall response is nonzero. For a general band Hamiltonian (possibly infinite-range), we prove that the Green’s function cannot be finite-range if the quantum Hall response is nonzero. The proofs use methods of algebraic geometry.