Competition of Quantum Anomalous Hall States and Charge Density Wave in a Correlated Topological Model

We investigate the topological phase transition driven by non-local electronic correlations in a realistic quantum anomalous Hall model consisting of d_xy–d_x^2-y^2 orbitals. Three topologically distinct phases defined in the non-interacting limit evolve to different charge density wave phases under correlations. Two conspicuous conclusions were obtained: The topological phase transition does not involve gap-closing and the dynamical fluctuations significantly suppress the charge order favored by the next nearest neighbor interaction. Our study sheds light on the stability of topological phase under electronic correlations, and we demonstrate a positive role played by dynamical fluctuations that is distinct to all previous studies on correlated topological states.