We show how to numerically calculate several quantities that characterize topological order starting from a microscopic fractional quantum Hall Hamiltonian. To find the set of degenerate ground states, we employ the infinite density matrix renormalization group method based on the matrix-product state representation of fractional quantum Hall states on an infinite cylinder. To study localized quasiparticles of a chosen topological charge, we use pairs of degenerate ground states as boundary conditions for the infinite density matrix renormalization group. We then show that the wave function obtained on the infinite cylinder geometry can be adapted to a torus of arbitrary modular parameter, which allows us to explicitly calculate the non-Abelian Berry connection associated with the modular T transformation. As a result, the quantum dimensions, topological spins, quasiparticle charges, chiral central charge, and Hall viscosity of the phase can be obtained using data contained entirely in the entanglement spectrum of an infinite cylinder.
A core tenet of condensed matter physics has been that different phases of matter can be classified according to Landau's symmetry breaking paradigm. It has become clear, however, that phases of matter exist that are not distinguished by symmetry, but rather by topology. A paradigmatic example of this topological order are the fractional quantum Hall phases, which are the topic of this dissertation. Such phases exhibit the fractional quantum Hall effect, which occurs when electrons confined to two dimensions are subjected to a strong perpendicular magnetic field at very low temperatures. Characterized by a precise quantization of the Hall resistance and a concomitant vanishing of the longitudinal resistance, the fractional quantum Hall effect results from the formation of a strongly correlated quantum liquid of electrons. This quantum liquid supports remarkable quasiparticle excitations, which carry a fractional charge and are thought to obey fractional statistics beyond the familiar Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics. The theoretical understanding of the topological orders realized by the fractional quantum Hall states has progressed by the proposal of explicit trial wave functions as well as various types of effective field theories. This dissertation focuses on two series of trial wave functions, abelian and non-abelian hierarchy wave functions. We study the non-abelian hierarchy wave functions using conformal field theory techniques, by means of which the associated topological properties are studied. These include the fractional charges of the quasiparticles and their non-abelian fractional statistics. In addition, we study abelian hierarchy wave functions using effective Ginzburg-Landau theories in a way that connects to their known conformal field theory description.
It has been shown that different Abelian and non-Abelian fractional quantum Hall states can be characterized by patterns of zeros described by sequences of integers
Sa. In this paper, we will show how to use the data
Sa to calculate various topological properties of the corresponding fraction quantum Hall state, such as the number of possible quasiparticle types and their quantum numbers, as well as the actions of the quasiparticle tunneling and modular transformations on the degenerate ground states on torus.
While the internal structure of Abelian topological order is well understood, how to characterize the non-Abelian topological order is an outstanding issue. We propose a distinctive scheme based on the many-body Chern number matrix to characterize non-Abelian multicomponent fractional quantum Hall states. As a concrete example, we study the many-body ground state of two-component bosons at the filling faction $\ensuremath{\nu}=4/3$ in topological flat band models. Utilizing density-matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization calculations, we demonstrate the emergence of non-Abelian spin-singlet fractional quantum Hall effect under three-body interaction, whose topological nature is classified by sixfold degenerate ground states and a fractionally quantized Chern-number matrix.
The modern conception of phases of matter has undergone tremendous developments since the first observation of topologically ordered state in fractional quantum Hall systems in the 1980s. Topological orders are exotic states of matter characterized by patterns of long-range entanglement that lie beyond Landau's symmetry breaking paradigm. In 2+1 dimensions, these phases support signature anyonic excitations with fractional statistics or even non-Abelian braiding effects. One important theoretical question is how we should characterize these phases. In 2+1 dimensions, plenty of evidence suggests that the \emph{modular matrices}, S and T, suffice to characterize the order completely. It is thus of equal importance to find out if these quantities are experimental observables. Here we demonstrate how such measurements can indeed be achieved using only the given Hamiltonian, allowing one to identify the corresponding topological order using a nuclear magnetic resonance simulator. This is a first experimental realization of these fundamental signatures of a topological order; it opens up new future avenues toward identifying more generic topological orders based purely on experimental measurements.
The string-net approach by Levin and Wen and the local unitary transformation approach by Chen, Gu and Wen provided ways to systematically label non-chiral topological orders in 2D. In those approaches, different topologically ordered many-body wave functions were characterized by different fixed-point tensors. Though extremely powerful, the resulting fixed-point tensors were mathematical abstractions and thus lacked a physical interpretation. As a result it was hard to judge if two different fixed-point tensors described the same quantum phase or not. We want to improve that approach by giving a more physical description of the topological orders. We find that the non-Abelian Berry's phases,
T- and
S-matrices, of the topological protected degenerate ground states on a torus give rise to a more physical description of topological orders. Using the Verlinde conjecture, we can even choose the canonical basis for the
T- and
S-matrices. It is conjectured that the
T and
S-matrices form a complete and one-to-one characterization of non-chiral topological orders and can replace the fixed-point tensor description to give us a more physical label for topological orders. As a result, all the topological properties can be obtained from the
T- and
S-matrices, such as number of quasiparticle types (from the dimension of
T or
S), the quasiparticle statistics (from the diagonal elements of
T), the quantum dimensions of quasiparticles (from the first row of
S), \etc.