Baker--Akhiezer sections from Higgs bundles and Landau levels in hyperbolic band theory

Abstract

As observed by Kienzle and the second author, rank-two $\mathcal{O}(3)$-twisted Higgs bundles on the projective line encode all hyperbolic crystals of genus two: the spectral curves are the unit cells, and the Hitchin fibers are the abelian Brillouin zones. In a uniform magnetic field of two flux quanta, the lowest Landau level is one-dimensional at every nonzero momentum, and, as found by Iengo and Li, its dimension jumps to two at the zero momentum. We identify the states of the lowest Landau level with the Baker--Akhiezer sections of the Higgs bundles, and their zeros, the vortices, with the Baker--Akhiezer divisors. A family of nonzero momenta limits to the zero momentum exactly when each of the two vortices approaches the image of the other under the spatial inversion, and the states of the jumped level are labeled by the directions of limiting. On the Higgs bundle side, the zero momentum is the point where the Hitchin fiber intersects the Hitchin section. Such a family of Higgs bundles limits to the Hitchin section, thereby crossing to a lower stratum of the \BB stratification, an example of the phenomenon investigated in terms of Baker--Akhiezer divisors by the first author with Figiel and Teschner.