Functional renormalization group for a large moiré unit cell

Abstract

Layers of two-dimensional materials arranged at a twist angle with respect to each other lead to enlarged unit cells with potentially strongly altered band structures, offering a new arena for novel and engineered many-body ground states. For the exploration of these, renormalization group methods are an appropriate, flexible tool that take into account the mutual influence of competing tendencies. Here we show that, within reasonable, non-trivial approximations, the functional renormalization group known from simpler two-dimensional systems can be employed for the large-unit cell moiré superlattices with more than 10.000 bands, remedying the need to employ ad hoc restrictions to effective low-energy theories of a few bands and/or effective continuum theories. This provides a description on the atomic scale, allowing one to absorb available ab-initio information on the model parameters and therefore lending the analysis a more concrete quantitative character. For the case of twisted bilayer graphene models, we explore the leading ordering tendencies depending on the band filling and the range of interactions. The results indicate a delicate balance between distinct magnetically ordered ground states, as well as the occurrence of a charge modulation within the moiré unit cell for sufficiently non-local repulsive interaction.