The flow of the Berry curvature vector field

Abstract

The concept of Berry phase and Berry curvature has become ubiquitous in solid state physics as it relates to variety of phenomena, such as topological insulators, polarization, and various Hall effects. It is well known that large Berry curvatures arise from close proximity of hybridizing bands, however, the vectorial nature of the Berry curvature is not utilized in current research. On bulk bcc Fe, we demonstrate the flow of the Berry curvature vector field which features not only monopoles but also higher dimensional structures with its own topological features. They can provide a novel unique view on the electronic structure in all three dimensions. This knowledge is also used to quantify particular contributions to the intrinsic anomalous Hall effect in a simple analytical form.