Electronic band structure and pinning of Fermi energy to van Hove singularities in twisted bilayer graphene: a self consistent approach

The emergence of flat bands in twisted bilayer graphene leads to an enhancement of interaction effects, and thus to insulating and superconducting phases at low temperatures, even though the exact mechanism is still widely debated. The position and splitting of the flat bands is also very sensitive to the residual interactions. Moreover, the low energy bands of twisted graphene bilayers show a rich structure of singularities in the density of states, van Hove singularities, which can enhance further the role of interactions. We study the effect of the long-range interactions on the band structure and the van Hove singularities of the low energy bands of twisted graphene bilayers. Reasonable values of the long-range electrostatic interaction lead to a band dispersion with a significant dependence on the filling. The change of the shape and position of the bands with electronic filling implies that the van Hove singularities remain close to the Fermi energy for a broad range of fillings. This result can be described as an effective pinning of the Fermi energy at the singularity. The sensitivity of the band structure to screening by the environment may open new ways of manipulating the system.