Troubleshooting

General Questions

Question

I get an argparse error when one of my command line arguments is a negative number. What is the correct syntax so that Python does not interpret my negative numbers as flags?

If you would like to parse negative number arguments to command line flags, it is best to use quotation marks with a preceding space, e.g. -t 1 0 " -0.25".

Question

When computing for the square or triangular lattices, the flags -alpha and -theta do not seem to do anything. Why not?

The flags -alpha and -theta specify the anisotropy and obliqueness of the underlying Bravais lattice. In the case of the square and triangular lattices, both of these values are fixed by definition and so cannot be changed. If you would like to change the anisotropy and obliqueness of a lattice with a single-site basis, you can use the bravais lattice parameter instead. For lattices with a multi-site basis, e.g. honeycomb or kagome, you can use the -alpha and -theta flags as normal, since the basis sites are defined in fractional coordinates with respect to the lattice vectors.

Question

I have run the code with the -save/-log flag but I cannot find the output. Where is the output saved?

If you explicitly executed the code in its local directory (e.g. src/HT for the programs and src/HT/plot for the plot scripts), then the output will be saved by default in the data, figs, and logs project directories. If you executed the code in any other location, then all of the output will be saved in the current working directory.

Question

I would like to implement a custom lattice, which has a multi-site basis that is different than honeycomb or kagome. How can I do this?

In HofstadterTools, the custom lattice parameter is used for this purpose and it requires an installation from source (advanced usage). Navigate to the unit_cell method of the Hofstadter class in src/HT/models/hofstadter.py and enter your desired set of basis vectors and high-symmetry/reference points under the elif self.lat == "custom": clause. By default, the custom lattice is identical to kagome.

Question

I would like to input a list of hopping parameters from a file. How can I do this?

If you are explicitly executing the code in its local directory (e.g. src/HT), then you can edit the configuration file hopping_input.txt located in src/HT/configuration, and then append the flag -input to your program. The file consists of rows with two columns, separated by a tab. The left column is the NN group and the right column is the hopping amplitude. For example, in order to input the flags -t 1 0 " -0.25", we can create the following file:

1 1
3 -0.25

If you are executing your program from a different location, then the -input flag will search for a file called hopping_input.txt in the current working directory.

Question

The progress bar becomes much shorter when I run using the -log flag. Why is this?

By default, the tqdm progress bar is streamed to stderr. Hence, the progress bar is shortened to 10 characters when logging to make the log files more readable.

Question

I have adjusted the -alpha lattice anisotropy flag and now the band structures and butterfly spectra look odd. Is this expected behavior?

In HofstadterTools, \(\kappa\)-th nearest neighbors are defined as a group of sites that are the same radius from a reference site. We stress that these points lie on a circle and not, for example, on an ellipse that is scaled by the Bravais lattice vector lengths. Hence, by adjusting the lattice anisotropy, you may inadvertently change the number of nearest neighbors. You can easily check this by plotting the lattice using the --plot_lattice flag.

Question

Where can I find the version number of my local copy of HofstadterTools?

The release number can be found in pyproject.toml and follows the standard semantic versioning conventions.

Band Structure Questions

Question

I would like to analyze the topology / quantum geometry of the bands, but I do not see such data in the output table of the band_structure program. How can I do this?

By default, the topology and quantum geometry computations are turned off in the band_structure program (for speed reasons). If you would like to turn these on, or configure the output table in any other way, you can use the -topo, -geom, and -cols flags. The basic band structure columns are returned by default. The -topo flag will additionally return the topology columns, the geom flag will additionally return the quantum geometry columns, and the -cols flag will override all settings to return a custom selection of columns. Note that the {basic,topology,geometry} table columns are grouped by computational expense.

Question

I would like to compute the band structure of my custom Hamiltonian but it is running very slowly compared to standard examples. Why is this?

The code for constructing a Hamiltonian matrix for a generalized Hofstadter model on any regular Euclidean lattice is expensive. In light of this, we have hardcoded the most common Hofstadter Hamiltonians, i.e. the Hofstadter Hamiltonians on the square/triangular/honeycomb/kagome lattices with nearest-neighbor hopping. In all other cases, the generic Hamiltonian constructor will be called. If you are interested in one custom Hamiltonian in particular, and really need to compute its complete band structure more quickly, then consider adding it to src/HT/functions/models.py in a similar format to the other hardcoded Hamiltonians, e.g. BasicKagomeHamiltonian. We note that the butterfly program does not suffer from this issue, since the diagonalization is performed only at a single \(k\) point.

Question

I have computed the band structure for a particular model and I have noticed that certain bands are not “touching” when they should be, or vice versa. How can I fix this?

Due to the discrete nature of the \(k\) mesh, it is difficult to declare that certain bands are touching. For this purpose, HofstadterTools uses the band gap threshold flag -bgt, which declares bands as touching when they are within this value of each other. If you notice that certain bands should/should not be touching, e.g. by noticing that the Chern numbers do not sum to zero, or you are simply suspicious of bands that are in close proximity, you can try decreasing the mesh size using the -samp flag and tweaking this -bgt value.

Question

I have computed the band structure for a kagome/custom lattice and it looks incorrect. Why could this be?

When computing the complete band structure, it may be more difficult to spot when the --periodicity flag needs to be set. If in doubt, compute the corresponding butterfly spectrum and make sure that it has the correct periodicity.

Question

For comparison, I would like to compute the regular band structure for my tight-binding model, without an external magnetic field. How can I do this?

The band structure with zero magnetic field can be computed by setting the flux density as -nphi 0 1. For example, we can compute the band structure of graphene by using the command band_structure -lat honeycomb -nphi 0 1.

Question

I have saved a band structure to file and I would now like to regenerate the output table. How can I do this?

The band_structure program takes an input file via the -load argument. By using this flag, the band structure is loaded from file and only the band properties are computed. You can then regenerate and/or reconfigure the output table as usual. Additionally, the output table can be saved to file by running band_structure with the -log flag. We note that the plot_band_structure program is intended for replotting the band structures and modifying their appearance, using the band_structure function in src/HT/functions/plotting.py. Since plot_band_structure calls the plotting function directly, it cannot be used to regenerate the output table. In both cases, 2D/3D band structure data needs to have been saved to file in order to plot the corresponding 2D/3D band structure.

Butterfly Questions

Question

I have plotted a Hofstadter butterfly for some custom model but there are spurious straggling bands and aperiodicity in the spectrum. What can I do to fix this?

By default, the flux density in HofstadterTools is defined with respect to the lattice unit cell area. However, in some models, the minimal plaquette around which a particle can hop encloses an area that is smaller than the unit cell area. In these cases, in order to both restore periodicity and view the complete butterfly spectrum, you may need to define the flux density with respect to the area of a minimal plaquette. In general, compute the ratio n of the effective unit cell area (spanned by the hopping terms) and the area of a minimal hopping plaquette, and then append the flag --periodicity n.

Question

I have plotted a Hofstadter butterfly using the --color flag and the code runs surprisingly quickly. How are the Chern numbers computed?

All of the Hofstadter butterflies are colored using the Streda-Widom Diophantine relation (see Appendix C of [DiColandrea22] for a derivation). We note that although the formula can unambiguously determine the Chern numbers for the case of the rectangular lattice, the natural window condition is not uniquely resolved in general. This may lead to minor imperfections in the coloring for other lattices, especially when plotting with an extremely high resolution, as scrutinized in Fig.4 of [Agazzi14] or [Avron14]. At the time of writing, there is no Diophantine equation that can uniquely determine the Chern numbers in the general case. For the --color flag, we make the choice of sacrificing precision for the sake of efficiency.

Question

I am trying to plot a plane-colored Hofstadter butterfly with high resolution but I find strange interpolated blobs in the fine structure of the spectrum. How can I fix this?

This is an indication that the dpi of the image is too low. Assuming that you have saved the output data for such a high-resolution spectrum (recommended), you can run plot_butterfly with a new -dpi flag. By default, the dpi is set to 300. This works reasonably well for \(M\) values up to about 300, where \(M\) is the number of bands in the spectrum. In general, we recommend setting a dpi value of greater than \(M\) for best results.