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arXiv:1601.01596 · Physical Review Letters

Dimensional Hierarchy of Fermionic Interacting Topological Phases

Raquel Queiroz, Eslam Khalaf, Ady Stern

Published Nov 11, 2016• 26 citations
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Abstract

We present a dimensional reduction argument to derive the classification reduction of fermionic symmetry protected topological phases in the presence of interactions. The dimensional reduction proceeds by relating the topological character of a d-dimensional system to the number of zero-energy bound states localized at zero-dimensional topological defects present at its surface. This correspondence leads to a general condition for symmetry preserving interactions that render the system topologically trivial, and allows us to explicitly write a quartic interaction to this end. Our reduction shows that all phases with topological invariant smaller than n are topologically distinct, thereby reducing the noninteracting Z classification to Z_{n}.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.117.206405

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We present a dimensional reduction argument to derive the classification reduction of fermionic symmetry protected topological phases in the presence of interactions. The dimensional reduction proceeds by relating the topological character of a d-dimensional system to the number of zero-energy bound states localized at zero-dimensional topological defects present at its surface. This correspondence leads to a general condition for symmetry preserving interactions that render the system topologically trivial, and allows us to explicitly write a quartic interaction to this end. Our reduction shows that all phases with topological invariant smaller than n are topologically distinct, thereby reducing the noninteracting Z classification to Z_{n}.
We present a dimensional reduction argument to derive the classification of fermionic symmetry protected topological phases in the presence of interactions. The dimensional reduction proceeds by relating the topological character of a ddd-dimensional system to the number of zero-energy bound states localized at zero-dimensional topological defects present at its surface. This correspondence enables the construction of a symmetry preserving nnn-particle quartic interaction that renders the system topologically trivial. Our reduction shows that all phases with ν<n\nu < nν<n are topologically distinct, thereby reducing the non-interacting Z\mathbb{Z}Z classification to Zn\mathbb{Z}_nZn​.
The conditions for both the stability and the breakdown of the topological classification of gapped ground states of noninteracting fermions, the tenfold way, in the presence of quartic fermion-fermion interactions are given for any dimension of space. This is achieved by encoding the effects of interactions on the boundary gapless modes in terms of boundary dynamical masses. Breakdown of the noninteracting topological classification occurs when the quantum nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models for the boundary dynamical masses favor quantum disordered phases. For the tenfold way, we find that (i) the noninteracting topological classification Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}^{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}Z2​ is always stable, (ii) the noninteracting topological classification Z\mathbb{Z}Z in even dimensions is always stable, and (iii) the noninteracting topological classification Z\mathbb{Z}Z in odd dimensions is unstable and reduces to ZN{\mathbb{Z}}_{N}^{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}ZN​ that can be identified explicitly for any dimension and any defining symmetries. We also apply our method to the three-dimensional topological crystalline insulator SnTe from the symmetry class AII+R\mathrm{AII}+RAII+R, for which we establish the reduction $\mathbb{Z}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\mathbb{Z}}_{8}^{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}$ of the noninteracting topological classification.
We classify interacting topological insulators and superconductors with order-two crystal symmetries (reflection or twofold rotation), focusing on the case where interactions reduce the noninteracting classification. We find that the free-fermion Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ classifications are stable against quartic contact interactions, whereas the Z\mathbb{Z}Z classifications reduce to ZN{\mathbb{Z}}_{N}ZN​, where NNN depends on the symmetry class and the dimension ddd. These results are derived using a quantum nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model (QNLSM) that describes the effects of the quartic interactions on the boundary modes of the crystalline topological phases. We use Clifford algebra extensions to derive the target spaces of these QNLSMs in a unified way. The reduction pattern of the free-fermion classification then follows from the presence or absence of topological terms in the QNLSMs, which is determined by the homotopy group of the target spaces. We show that this derivation can be performed using either a complex fermion or a real Majorana representation of the crystalline topological phases and demonstrate that these two representations give consistent results. To illustrate the breakdown of the noninteracting classification, we present examples of crystalline topological insulators and superconductors in one, two, and three dimensions whose surface modes are unstable against interactions. For the three-dimensional example, we show that the reduction pattern obtained by the QNLSM method agrees with the one inferred from the stability analysis of the boundary modes using bosonization.
In free fermion systems with given symmetry and dimension, the possible topological phases are labeled by elements of only three types of Abelian groups, 0, Z2, or Z. For example, noninteracting one-dimensional fermionic superconducting phases with S(z) spin rotation and time-reversal symmetries are classified by Z. We show that with weak interactions, this classification reduces to Z4. Using group cohomology, one can additionally show that there are only four distinct phases for such one-dimensional superconductors even with strong interactions. Comparing their projective representations, we find that all these four symmetry-protected topological phases can be realized with free fermions. Further, we show that one-dimensional fermionic superconducting phases with Z(n) discrete S(z) spin rotation and time-reversal symmetries are classified by Z4 when n is even and Z2 when n is odd; again, all these strongly interacting topological phases can be realized by noninteracting fermions. Our approach can be applied to systems with other symmetries to see which one-dimensional topological phases can be realized with free fermions.
Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are a minimal generalization of the concept of topological insulators to interacting systems. In this paper, we describe the classification and properties of such phases for three-dimensional (3D) electronic systems with a number of different symmetries. For symmetries representative of all classes in the famous 10-fold way of free-fermion topological insulators/superconductors, we determine the stability to interactions. By combining with results on bosonic SPT phases, we obtain a classification of electronic 3D SPT phases for these symmetries. In cases with a normal U(1)U(1)U(1) subgroup we show that this classification is complete. We describe the nontrivial surface and bulk properties of these states. In particular, we discuss interesting correlated surface states that are not captured in a free-fermion description. We show that in many, but not all, cases, the surface can be gapped while preserving symmetry if it develops intrinsic topological order.
In this article we provide a general mechanism for generating interaction-enabled fermionic topological phases. We illustrate the mechanism with crystalline symmetry-protected topological phases in one, two, and three spatial dimensions. These nontrivial phases require interactions for their existence, and in the cases we consider, the free-fermion classification yields only a trivial phase. For the one- and two-dimensional phases we consider, we provide explicit exactly solvable models which realize the interaction-enabled phases. Similar to the interpretation of the Kitaev Majorana wire as a mean-field ppp-wave superconductor Hamiltonian arising from an interacting model with quartic interactions, we show that our systems can be interpreted as ``mean-field'' charge-4e4e4e superconductors arising, e.g., from an interacting model with eight-body interactions or through another physical mechanism. The quartet superconducting nature allows for the teleportation of full Cooper pairs and, in two dimensions, for interesting semiclassical crystalline defects with non-Abelian anyon bound states.