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arXiv:1403.5558 · APS

Inversion symmetry protected topological insulators and superconductors

Yuan-Ming Lu, D. H. Lee

Published Mar 21, 2014• 8 citations
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Abstract

Three dimensional topological insulator represents a class of novel quantum phases hosting robust gapless boundary excitations, which is protected by global symmetries such as time reversal, charge conservation and spin rotational symmetry. In this work we systematically study another class of topological phases of weakly interacting electrons protected by spatial inversion symmetry, which generally don't support stable gapless boundary states. We classify these inversion-symmetric topological insulators and superconductors in the framework of K-theory, and construct their lattice models. We also discuss quantized response functions of these inversion-protected topological phases, which serve as their experimental signatures.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1403.5558

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Three dimensional topological insulator represents a class of novel quantum phases hosting robust gapless boundary excitations, which is protected by global symmetries such as time reversal, charge conservation and spin rotational symmetry. In this work we systematically study another class of topological phases of weakly interacting electrons protected by spatial inversion symmetry, which generally don't support stable gapless boundary states. We classify these inversion-symmetric topological insulators and superconductors in the framework of K-theory, and construct their lattice models. We also discuss quantized response functions of these inversion-protected topological phases, which serve as their experimental signatures.
We complete a classification of topological phases and their topological defects in crystalline insulators and superconductors. We consider topological phases and defects described by noninteracting Bloch and Bogoliubov--de Gennes Hamiltonians that support additional order-two spatial symmetry, besides any of 10 classes of symmetries defined by time-reversal symmetry and particle-hole symmetry. The additional order-two spatial symmetry we consider is general and it includes ${\mathbit{Z}}_{2}$ global symmetry, mirror reflection, twofold rotation, inversion, and their magnetic point group symmetries. We find that the topological periodic table shows a periodicity in the number of flipped coordinates under the order-two spatial symmetry, in addition to the Bott periodicity in the space dimensions. Various symmetry-protected topological phases and gapless modes will be identified and discussed in a unified framework. We also present topological classification of symmetry-protected Fermi points. The bulk classification and the surface Fermi point classification provide a realization of the bulk-boundary correspondence in terms of the KKK theory.
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Topology is routinely used to understand the physics of electronic insulators. However, for strongly interacting electronic matter, such as Mott insulators, a comprehensive topological characterization is still lacking. When their ground state only contains short-range entanglement and does not break symmetries spontaneously, they generically realize crystalline fermionic symmetry-protected topological phases (cFSPTs), supporting gapless modes at the boundaries or at the lattice defects. Here, we provide an exhaustive classification of cFSPTs in two dimensions with U ( 1 ) charge-conservation and spinful time-reversal symmetries, namely, those generically present in spin-orbit coupled insulators, for any of the 17 wallpaper groups. It has been shown that the classification of cFSPTs can be understood from appropriate real-space decorations of lower-dimensional subspaces, and we expose how these relate to the Wyckoff positions of the lattice. We find that all nontrivial one-dimensional decorations require electronic interactions. Furthermore, we provide model Hamiltonians for various decorations, and discuss the signatures of cFSPTs. This classification paves the way to further explore topological interacting insulators, providing the backbone information in generic model systems and ultimately in experiments. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are bulk-gapped quantum phases with symmetries, which have gapless or degenerate boundary states as long as the symmetries are not broken. The SPT phases in free fermion systems, such as topological insulators, can be classified; however, it is not known what SPT phases exist in general interacting systems. We present a systematic way to construct SPT phases in interacting bosonic systems. Just as group theory allows us to construct 230 crystal structures in three-dimensional space, we use group cohomology theory to systematically construct different interacting bosonic SPT phases in any dimension and with any symmetry, leading to the discovery of bosonic topological insulators and superconductors.
We introduce a novel class of interaction-enabled topological crystalline insulators in two- and three-dimensional electronic systems, which we call ``topological crystalline magnet.'' It is protected by the product of the time-reversal symmetry T\mathcal{T}T and a mirror symmetry or a rotation symmetry R\mathcal{R}R. A topological crystalline magnet exhibits two intriguing features: (i) it cannot be adiabatically connected to any Slater insulator and (ii) the edge state is robust against coupling electrons to the edge. These features are protected by the anomalous symmetry transformation property ${(\mathcal{R}\mathcal{T})}^{2}=\ensuremath{-}1$ of the edge state. An anisotropic response to the external magnetic field can be an experimental signature.
Topological phases are quantum phases of matter that appear close to absolute zero temperature. In contrast to commonly known condensed phases of matter, such as a magnet or a superconductor, distinct topological phases may have the same symmetry. Instead, these phases are distinguished by the topology of the electronic wavefunction. Already the single-particle excitations described by band theory in an insulator or a metal or by Bogoliubov-de Gennes theory in a superconductor may have novel anomalous properties associated to their topology. This topological band theory is the subject of this thesis. We aim towards identifying the anomalous boundary and defect states associated to the topology of the band structure in crystalline insulators and superconductors. Furthermore, we determine criteria to easily identify the topological phases from the band structure of a given insulator or superconductor. In Chapter 2 we show that crystalline topological insulators and superconductors may host anomalous gapless or in-gap excitations on corners of a two-dimensional crystal or hinges of a three-dimensional crystal. These topological phases are called "second-order" according to the codimension "2" of their anomalous boundary states. We discuss the precise conditions for their appearance and when they can be linked to the bulk topology. Our discussion includes mirror, twofold-rotation and inversion as crystalline symmetries. In Chapter 3 we discuss the appearance of anomalous gapless or ingap states at defects in a crystalline insulator or superconductor. In particular, we link the existence of anomalous states at disclinations -- lattice defects that violate a rotation symmetry only locally -- to second-order topological crystalline phases. As a side product, we identify the possible contributions of other topological phases to the disclination anomaly. The results of this chapter allow to determine precisely how the disclination anomaly is linked to the bulk topology. In Chapter 4 we present how to construct "symmetry-based indicators" for topological superconductors that admit a description within the Bogoliubov-de Gennes framework. Symmetry-based indicators are necessary criteria for a given Bogoliubov-de Gennes Hamiltonian to realize a topological crystalline phase with anomalous boundary exitations. These criteria are formulated in terms of data from a small set of high-symmetry momenta only. Our approach guarantees to extract the maximal information on the anomalous boundary exitations that can be extracted from a point-wise evaluation of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes Hamiltonian. In the limit of weak superconducting pairing, our criteria can be formulated in terms of data from the normal-state band structure alone.