Abstract. We investigate the possibility of exactly flat non-trivial Chern bands in tight binding models with local (strictly short-ranged) hopping parameters. We demonstrate that while any two of three criteria can be simultaneously realized (exactly flat band, non-zero Chern number, local hopping), it is not possible to simultaneously satisfy all three. Our theorem covers both the case of a single flat band, for which we give a rather elementary proof, as well as the case of multiple degenerate flat bands. In the latter case, our result is obtained as an application of K-theory. We also introduce a class of models on the Lieb lattice with nearest and next-nearest neighbor hopping parameters, which have an isolated exactly flat band of zero Chern number but, in general, non-zero Berry curvature.

A formalism is developed for the rigorous study of solvable fractional quantum Hall parent Hamiltonians with Landau level mixing. The idea of organization through "generalized Pauli principles" is expanded to allow for root level entanglement, giving rise to "entangled Pauli principles". Through the latter, aspects of the effective field theory description become ingrained in exact microscopic solutions for a great wealth of phases for which no similar single Landau level description is known. We discuss in detail braiding statistic, edge theory, and rigorous zero-mode counting for the Jain-221 state as derived from a microscopic Hamiltonian. The relevant root-level entanglement is found to feature an AKLT-type MPS structure associated with an emergent SU(2)-symmetry.

We analyze general zero mode properties of the parent Hamiltonian of the unprojected Jain-2/5 state. We characterize the zero mode condition associated to this Hamiltonian via projection onto a four-dimensional two-particle subspace for given pair angular momentum, for the disk and similarly for the spherical geometry. Earlier numerical claims in the literature about ground state uniqueness on the sphere are substantiated on analytic grounds, and related results are derived. Preference is given to second quantized methods, where zero mode properties are derived not from given analytic wave functions, but from a "lattice" Hamiltonian and associated zero mode conditions. This method reveals new insights into the guiding-center structure of the unprojected Jain-2/5 state, in particular a system of dominance patterns following a "generalized Pauli principle", which establishes a complete one-to-one correspondence with the edge mode counting. We also identify one-body operators that function as generators of zero modes.