The Dirac mass of a two-dimensional QAH insulator is directly related to the parity anomaly of planar quantum electrodynamics, as shown initially by Niemi and Semenoff [Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 2077 (1983)]. In this work, we connect the additional momentum-dependent Newtonian mass term of a QAH insulator to the parity anomaly. We reveal that in the calculation of the effective action, before renormalization, the Newtonian mass acts similar to a parity-breaking element of a high-energy regularization scheme. This calculation allows us to derive the finite frequency correction to the DC Hall conductivity of a QAH insulator. We predict that the leading order AC correction contains a term proportional to the Chern number. This term originates from the Newtonian mass and can be measured via electrical or magneto-optical experiments. Moreover, we prove that the Newtonian mass significantly changes the resonance structure of the AC Hall conductivity in comparison to pure Dirac systems like graphene.

• Received 9 March 2020
• Accepted 15 July 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.033193

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society