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arXiv:0903.5211 · Physical Review B

Description of Kitaev’s honeycomb model with toric-code stabilizers

Graham Kells, Johannes K. Slingerland, Jiří Vala

Published Sep 18, 2009• 62 citations
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Abstract

We present a solution of Kitaev's spin model on the honeycomb lattice and of related topologically ordered spin models. We employ a Jordan-Wigner-type fermionization and find that the Hamiltonian takes a BCS-type form, allowing the system to be solved by Bogoliubov transformation. Our fermionization does not employ nonphysical auxiliary degrees of freedom and the eigenstates we obtain are completely explicit in terms of the spin variables. The ground state is obtained as a BCS condensate of fermion pairs over a vacuum state which corresponds to the toric-code state with the same vorticity. We show in detail how to calculate all eigenstates and eigenvalues of the model on the torus. In particular, we find that the topological degeneracy on the torus descends directly from that of the toric-code, which now supplies four vacua for the fermions, one for each choice of periodic vs antiperiodic boundary conditions. The reduction of the degeneracy in the non-Abelian phase of the model is seen to be due to the vanishing of one of the corresponding candidate BCS ground states in that phase. This occurs in particular in the fully periodic vortex-free sector. The true ground state in this sector is exhibited and shown to be gapped away from the three partially antiperiodic ground states whenever the non-Abelian phase is gapped.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.80.125415

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We present a solution of Kitaev's spin model on the honeycomb lattice and of related topologically ordered spin models. We employ a Jordan-Wigner-type fermionization and find that the Hamiltonian takes a BCS-type form, allowing the system to be solved by Bogoliubov transformation. Our fermionization does not employ nonphysical auxiliary degrees of freedom and the eigenstates we obtain are completely explicit in terms of the spin variables. The ground state is obtained as a BCS condensate of fermion pairs over a vacuum state which corresponds to the toric-code state with the same vorticity. We show in detail how to calculate all eigenstates and eigenvalues of the model on the torus. In particular, we find that the topological degeneracy on the torus descends directly from that of the toric-code, which now supplies four vacua for the fermions, one for each choice of periodic vs antiperiodic boundary conditions. The reduction of the degeneracy in the non-Abelian phase of the model is seen to be due to the vanishing of one of the corresponding candidate BCS ground states in that phase. This occurs in particular in the fully periodic vortex-free sector. The true ground state in this sector is exhibited and shown to be gapped away from the three partially antiperiodic ground states whenever the non-Abelian phase is gapped.
We examine the star lattice Kitaev model whose ground state is a chiral spin liquid. We fermionize the model such that the fermionic vacua are toric-code states on an effective Kagome lattice. This implies that the Abelian phase of the system is inherited from the fermionic vacua and that time-reversal symmetry is spontaneously broken at the level of the vacuum. In terms of these fermions we derive the Bloch-matrix Hamiltonians for the vortex-free sector and its time-reversed counterpart and illuminate the relationships between the sectors. The phase diagram for the model is shown to be a sphere in the space of coupling parameters around the triangles of the lattices. The Abelian phase lies inside the sphere and the critical boundary between topologically distinct Abelian and non-Abelian phases lies on the surface. Outside the sphere the system is generically gapped except in the planes where the coupling parameters between the vertices on triangles are zero. These cases correspond to bipartite lattice structures and the dispersion relations are similar to that of the original Kitaev honeycomb model. In a further analysis we demonstrate the threefold non-Abelian ground-state degeneracy on a torus by explicit calculation.
The non-Abelian Berry phase is an essential feature of non-Abelian anyons for the realization of topological quantum computation. This thesis is primarily a study about the numerical calculation of the Berry phase of non-Abelian anyons in the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model. It is also a guide for experimental the realizations of the actual brading process. We give an introduction to the theory of non-Abelian anyons, briefly discussing in what kind of systems they are realized, and their possible use in topological quantum computation. Non-Abelian anyons are studied within the Kitaev honeycomb model where they are realized on the plaquettes of the honeycomb lattice. The Kitaev honeycomb model can be solved exactly by using various fermionization methods. In this thesis, we review a solution based on Jordan-Wigner types of fermions which transform Hamiltonian to a fermionic quadratic form. This kind of fermionization procedure is quite general and can be applied to any trivalent spin lattice models. Moreover, we introduce Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov method to solve general quadratic fermionic Hamiltonian and employ Bloch-Messiah theorem in order to write ground state wave function explicitly. Later, we apply these methods to honeycomb model and study the eigenstates of the model so that we can do the Berry phase calculation. The final chapter explains the details of the numerical calculation of the non-Abelian Berry phase. First, we show how to create and adiabatically move vortices in the honeycomb model. A brief review of the Berry phase is given including some discussion about a numerical approach. Later on Thouless’ representation of the ground state is introduced to calculate the Berry phase. All these theoretical tools are applied to a 4 vortex configuration of the model to calculate the non-Abelian Berry phase of the system on a particular path in the parameter space.
The honeycomb lattice Kitaev model H K with two kinds of Wen–Toric-code four-body interactions H W T is investigated exactly using a new fermionization method, and the ground state phase diagram is obtained. Six kinds of three-body interactions are also considered. A Hamiltonian equivalent to the honeycomb lattice Kitaev model is also introduced. The fermionization method is generalized to two-dimensional systems, and the two-dimensional Jordan–Wigner transformation is obtained as a special case of this formula. The model H K + H W T is symmetric in four-dimensional space of coupling constants, and the anyon type excitations appear in each phase.
We develop a rigorous and highly accurate technique for calculation of the Berry phase in systems with a quadratic Hamiltonian within the context of the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model. The method is based on the recently found solution of the model which uses the Jordan-Wigner-type fermionization in an exact effective spin-hardcore boson representation. We specifically simulate the braiding of two non-Abelian vortices (anyons) in a four vortex system characterized by a two-fold degenerate ground state. The result of the braiding is the non-Abelian Berry matrix which is in excellent agreement with the predictions of the effective field theory. The most precise results of our simulation are characterized by an error on the order of 10−510^{-5}10−5 or lower. We observe exponential decay of the error with the distance between vortices, studied in the range from one to nine plaquettes. We also study its correlation with the involved energy gaps and provide preliminary analysis of the relevant adiabaticity conditions. The work allows to investigate the Berry phase in other lattice models including the Yao-Kivelson model and particularly the square-octagon model. It also opens the possibility of studying the Berry phase under non-adiabatic and other effects which may constitute important sources of errors in topological quantum computation.
We develop a rigorous and highly accurate technique for the calculation of the Berry phase in systems with a quadratic Hamiltonian within the context of the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model. The method is based on the recently found solution of the model that uses the Jordan–Wigner-type fermionization in an exact effective spin-hardcore boson representation. We specifically simulate the braiding of two non-Abelian vortices (anyons) in a four-vortex system characterized by a twofold degenerate ground state. The result of the braiding is the non-Abelian Berry matrix, which is in excellent agreement with the predictions of the effective field theory. The most precise results of our simulation are characterized by an error of the order of 10−5 or lower.We observe exponential decay of the error with the distance between vortices, studied in the range of one to nine plaquettes. We also study its correlation with the involved energy gaps and provide a preliminary analysis of the relevant adiabaticity conditions. The work allows one to investigate the Berry phase in other lattice models including the Yao–Kivelson model and particularly the square–octagon model. It also opens up the possibility of studying the Berry phase under nonadiabatic and other effects that may constitute important sources of errors in topological quantum computation.
The Kitaev honeycomb model is a paradigm of exactly solvable models, showing nontrivial physical properties such as topological quantum order, Abelian and non-Abelian anyons, and chirality. Its solution is one of the most beautiful examples of the interplay of different mathematical techniques in condensed matter physics. In this paper, we show how to derive a tensor network (TN) description of the eigenstates of this spin-1/2 model in the thermodynamic limit, and in particular for its ground state. In our setting, eigenstates are naturally encoded by an exact 3d TN structure made of fermionic unitary operators, corresponding to the unitary quantum circuit building up the many-body quantum state. In our derivation we review how the different ``solution ingredients'' of the Kitaev honeycomb model can be accounted for in the TN language, namely, Jordan-Wigner transformation, braidings of Majorana modes, fermionic Fourier transformation, and Bogoliubov transformation. The TN built in this way allows for a clear understanding of several properties of the model. In particular, we show how the fidelity diagram is straightforward both at zero temperature and at finite temperature in the vortex-free sector. We also show how the properties of two-point correlation functions follow easily. Finally, we also discuss the pros and cons of contracting of our 3d TN down to a 2d projected entangled pair state (PEPS) with finite bond dimension. The results in this paper can be extended to generalizations of the Kitaev model, e.g., to other lattices, spins, and dimensions.