Anomalous diamagnetic response in a spin-orbit insulator

Sebastian Huber, Ehud Altman

The Weizmann Institute of Science 

The (diamagnetic) response of an insulator is usually suppressed by the size of the gap to the lowest excitation. In my talk I'll report about a model with strong spin-orbit interactions where a macroscopic diamagnetic response is induced which is independent of the gap. I discuss the evolution of the response as a function of a tuning parameter which brings the system from a topologically trivial via a strong topological insulator to a weak topological insulator.