We examine how the properties of the Kondo insulators change when the symmetry of the underlying crystal field multiplets is taken into account. We employ the Anderson lattice model and consider its low-energy physics. We show that in a large class of crystal field configurations, Kondo insulators can develop a topological nontrivial ground state. Such topological Kondo insulators are adiabatically connected to noninteracting insulators with unphysically large spin-orbit coupling, and as such may be regarded as interaction-driven topological insulators. We analyze the entanglement entropy of the Anderson lattice model of Kondo insulators by evaluating its entanglement spectrum. Our results for the entanglement spectrum are consistent with the surface state calculations. Last, we discuss the construction of the maximally localized Wannier wave functions for generic Kondo insulators.

• Received 15 November 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.85.045130