Fate of interaction-driven topological insulators under disorder

Abstract

We analyze the effect of disorder on the weak-coupling instabilities of a quadratic band crossing point (QBCP) in two-dimensional Fermi systems, which, in the clean limit, display interaction-driven topological insulating phases. In the framework of a renormalization group procedure, which treats fermionic interactions and disorder on the same footing, we test all possible instabilities and identify the corresponding ordered phases in the presence of disorder for both single-valley and two-valley QBCP systems. We find that disorder generally suppresses the critical temperature at which the interaction-driven topologically nontrivial order sets in. Strong disorder can also drive a topological phase transition into a topologically trivial insulating state.