ArXiv · 2026
Fractional Chern insulators have attracted broad interest as lattice analogs of fractional quantum Hall states without Landau levels. However, low-filling fractional Chern insulators are fragile because charge-ordered phases can compete strongly with the fractional topological liquid. Here, we propose a center-decorated kagome model, motivated by geometry-tunable artificial lattices, in which the center-site hopping t₂ provides a direct knob for the quantum geometry of an isolated C=1 flat band. Here quantum geometry refers to the Berry curvature and Fubini–Study metric, which determine the form factors of interactions projected into the Chern band. Exact diagonalization shows that tuning t₂ away from the flatness-optimized kagome limit reduces the trace-condition deviation, suppresses competing charge order, and enhances the many-body stability at both ν=1/3 and the more fragile ν=1/5 filling. At ν=1/5, this stability-enhanced window persists under nearby interaction profiles, including variations of the dominant third-neighbor repulsion and weak nearest-neighbor admixtures. Low-energy spectra, spectral flow, quasihole and entanglement counting, static structure factors, and the quantized total many-body Chern number Cₜₒₜ=1 consistently support Laughlin-like fractional Chern insulators. These results identify quantum-geometry engineering as a route to stabilizing dilute fractional Chern insulators beyond band-flatness optimization alone.
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