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arXiv:1305.1521 · Physical Review B

Persisting topological order via geometric frustration

Kai Phillip Schmidt

Published Jul 16, 2013• 22 citations
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Abstract

We introduce a toric code model on the dice lattice which is exactly solvable and displays topological order at zero temperature. In the presence of a magnetic field, the flux dynamics is mapped to the highly frustrated transverse field Ising model on the kagome lattice. This correspondence suggests an intriguing disorder by disorder phenomenon in a topologically ordered system implying that the topological order is extremely robust due to the geometric frustration. Furthermore, a connection between fully frustrated transverse field Ising models and topologically ordered systems is demonstrated which opens an exciting physical playground due to the interplay of topological quantum order and geometric frustration.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.88.035118

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We introduce a toric code model on the dice lattice which is exactly solvable and displays topological order at zero temperature. In the presence of a magnetic field, the flux dynamics is mapped to the highly frustrated transverse field Ising model on the kagome lattice. This correspondence suggests an intriguing disorder by disorder phenomenon in a topologically ordered system implying that the topological order is extremely robust due to the geometric frustration. Furthermore, a connection between fully frustrated transverse field Ising models and topologically ordered systems is demonstrated which opens an exciting physical playground due to the interplay of topological quantum order and geometric frustration.
We report on a systematic study of two-dimensional, periodic, frustrated Ising models with quantum dynamics introduced via a transverse magnetic field. The systems studied are the triangular and kagom\'e lattice antiferromagnets, fully frustrated models on the square and hexagonal (honeycomb) lattices, a planar analog of the pyrochlore antiferromagnet, a pentagonal lattice antiferromagnet, as well as two quasi-one-dimensional lattices that have considerable pedagogical value. All of these exhibit a macroscopic degeneracy at T=0T=0T=0 in the absence of the transverse field, which enters as a singular perturbation. We analyze these systems with a combination of a variational method at weak fields, a perturbative Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson approach from large fields, as well as quantum Monte Carlo simulations utilizing a cluster algorithm. Our results include instances of quantum order arising from classical criticality (triangular lattice) or classical disorder (pentagonal and probably hexagonal) as well as notable instances of quantum disorder arising from classical disorder (kagom\'e). We also discuss the effect of finite temperature, as well as the interplay between longitudinal and transverse fields---in the kagom\'e problem the latter gives rise to a nontrivial phase diagram with bond-ordered and bond-critical phases in addition to the disordered phase. We also note connections to quantum-dimer models and thereby to the physics of Heisenberg antiferromagnets in short-ranged resonating valence-bond phases that have been invoked in discussions of high-temperature superconductivity.
We investigate the quantum robustness of the topological order in the toric code on the honeycomb lattice in the presence of a uniform parallel field. For a field in z z -direction, the low-energy physics is in the flux-free sector and can be mapped to the transverse-field Ising model on the honeycomb lattice. One finds a second-order quantum phase transition in the 3D Ising ^\star ⋆ universality class for both signs of the field. The same is true for a postive field in x x -direction where an analogue mapping in the charge-free sector yields a ferromagnetic transverse-field Ising model on the triangular lattice and the phase transition is still 3D Ising ^\star ⋆ . In contrast, for negative x x -field, the charge-free sector is mapped to the highly frustrated antiferromagnetic transverse-field Ising model on the triangular lattice which is known to host a quantum phase transition in the 3D XY ^\star ⋆ universality class. Further, the charge-free sector does not always contain the low-energy physics for negative x x -fields and a first-order phase transition to the polarized phase in the charge-full sector takes place at larger negative field values. We quantify the location of this transition by comparing quantum Monte Carlo simulations and high-field series expansions. The full extension of the topological phase in the presence of x x - and z z -fields is determined by perturbative linked-cluster expansions using a full graph decomposition. Extrapolating the high-order series of the charge and the flux gap allows to estimate critical exponents of the gap closing. This analysis indicates that the topological order breaks down by critical lines of 3D Ising ^\star ⋆ and 3D XY ^\star ⋆ type with interesting potential multi-critical crossing points. All findings for the toric code on the honeycomb lattice can be transferred exactly to the toric code on the triangular lattice.
A quantum Ising model in a transverse field is of the simplest quantum many-body systems used for studying universal properties of quantum phase transitions. Interestingly, it is well known that such phase transitions can be mapped to topological phase transitions in toric code models. Therefore, one can expect that well-known properties of the transverse Ising model are used for characterizing topological phase transitions in toric code models. In this paper, we consider the magnetization of the Ising model and show, while it is a local order parameter, it is mapped to a nonlocal order parameter on the topological side. Consequently, we introduce a string order parameter for topological phase transitions in toric code models defined on different lattices with different dimensions in the presence of a uniform magnetic field. Since such a string order parameter is dual of the Ising order parameter with well-known properties, it leads to a topological (nonlocal) characterization of phase transition in the toric code model in uniform field. Our results show that although topological phase transitions do not follow a symmetry-breaking mechanism, it might still be possible to use concepts of symmetry-breaking phase transitions for topological ones by finding suitable mappings.
We analyze the toric code model in the presence of quenched disorder, which is introduced via different types of random magnetic fields. In general, close to a quantum phase transition between a spin polarized phase and a topologically ordered one, we find that increasing the amount of disorder favors the topological phase. For some realizations of disorder, topological order can be robust against arbitrarily strong magnetic fields. In the case of the toric code in a random $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}h$ field, we show that the system exhibits a quantum phase transition to a spin-glass phase in an appropriate dual variables description. The survival of topological order in the spin-glass phase is directly related to the percolation properties of the rigid lattice in the Edwards-Anderson bimodal spin-glass model. According to recent numerical results for this model [F. Rom\'a et al., Phys. Rev. B 82, 214401 (2010)], it is likely that the rigid lattice does not percolate and, as a result, a new intermediate quantum phase appears in the random-field toric code. In this intermediate quantum phase, topological order coexists with spin glassiness.
We investigate the interplay of classical degeneracy and quantum dynamics in a range of periodic frustrated transverse field Ising systems at zero temperature. We find that such dynamics can lead to unusual ordered phases and phase transitions or to a quantum spin liquid (cooperative paramagnetic) phase as in the triangular and kagome lattice antiferromagnets, respectively. For the latter, we further predict passage to a bond-ordered phase followed by a critical phase as the field is tilted. These systems also provide exact realizations of quantum dimer models introduced in studies of high temperature superconductivity.
Typical topological systems undergo a topological phase transition in the presence of a strong enough perturbation. We propose an adjustable frustrated toric code with a ``topological line'' at which no phase transition happens in the system and the topological order is robust against a nonlinear perturbation of arbitrary strength. This important result is a consequence of the interplay between frustration and nonlinearity in our system, which also causes the emergence of other interesting phenomena such as reentrant topological phases and survival of the topological order under local projection operations. Our study opens a window towards more robust topological quantum codes which are the cornerstones of large-scale quantum computing.