Robust non-Abelian even-denominator fractional Chern insulator in twisted bilayer MoTe₂

A recent experiment observes a series of quantum Hall effects in transition metal dichalcogenide moir\'e MoTe₂ K. Kang, et. al, Nature 628, 522-526 (2024). Among them, the filling = 3 state points to a time-reversal pair of edge states resembling those of the even-denominator fractional Chern insulators (FCI). Inspired by this discovery, we investigate whether a robust incompressible quantum Hall liquid can be stabilized in the half-filled Chern band of twisted MoTe₂ bilayers. We use the continuum model with parameters relevant to twisted MoTe₂ bilayers and obtain three consecutive nearly flat Chern bands that resemble the experimental plateaus at filling = 2, 4, 6. Crucially, when the second moir\'e miniband is half-filled, signatures of non-Abelian states are found via exact diagonalization calculations, including the stable six-fold ground state degeneracy which grows more robust for larger lattice sizes in consistency with an even-denominator FCI state. We further perform flux insertion simulations to reveal a 1/2 quantized many-body Chern number. Furthermore, the ground state density structure factors show no sharp peak, which excludes the charge density wave order. These evidences signal the potential of realizing the non-Abelian state at zero magnetic field in twisted MoTe₂ bilayers at the fractional hole filling 3/2.