Robustness of quantum spin Hall effect in an external magnetic field

The edge states in the quantum spin Hall effect are expected to be protected by time reversal symmetry. The experimental observation of the quantized conductance was reported in the InAs/GaSb quantum well (Du et al., arXiv:1306.1925), up to a large magnetic field, which raises a question on the robustness of the edge states in the quantum spin Hall effect under time reversal symmetry breaking. Here we present a theoretical calculation on topological invariants for the Benevig-Hughes-Zhang model in an external magnetic field, and find that the quantum spin Hall effect remains robust up to a large magnetic field. The critical value of the magnetic field breaking the quantum spin Hall effect is dominantly determined by the band gap at the Gamma point instead of the indirect band gap between the conduction and valence bands. This illustrates that the quantum spin Hall effect could persist even under time reversal symmetry breaking.