arXiv:0811.0911 · Physical Review B
Interacting anyonic fermions in a two-body color code model
Héctor Bombín, Mehdi Kargarian, Miguel Angel Martin-Delgado
Abstract
We introduce a two-body quantum Hamiltonian model of spin $\frac{1}{2}$ on a two-dimensional spatial lattice with exact topological degeneracy in all coupling regimes. There exists a gapped phase in which the low-energy sector reproduces an effective color code model. High-energy excitations fall into three families of anyonic fermions that turn out to be strongly interacting. The model exhibits a ${\mathbf{Z}}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\mathbf{Z}}_{2}$ gauge-group symmetry and string-net integrals of motion, which are related to the existence of topological charges that are invisible to moving high-energy fermions.