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arXiv:1609.02897

Fermionic Matrix Product Operators and Topological Phases of Matter

Dominic J. Williamson, Nick Bultinck, Jutho Haegeman, Frank Verstraete

Published Sep 9, 2016• 9 citations
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Abstract

We introduce the concept of fermionic matrix product operators, and show that they provide a natural representation of fermionic fusion tensor categories. This allows for the classification of two dimensional fermionic topological phases in terms of matrix product operator algebras. Using this approach we give a classification of fermionic symmetry protected topological phases with respect to a group $G$ in terms of three cohomology groups: $H^1(G,\mathbb{Z}_2)$, describing which matrix product operators are of Majorana type, $H^2(G,\mathbb{Z}_2)$, describing the fermionic nature of the fusion tensors that arise when two matrix product operators are multiplied, and the supercohomolgy group $\bar{H}^3(G,U(1))$ which corresponds to the associator that changes the order of fusion. We also generalize the tensor network description of the string-net ground states to the fermionic setting, yielding simple representations of a class that includes the fermionic toric code.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1609.02897

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Abstract We introduce an index for symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases of infinite fermionic chains with an on-site symmetry given by a finite group G. This index takes values in Z2×H1(G,Z2)×H2(G,U(1)p)\mathbb {Z}_2 \times H^1(G,\mathbb {Z}_2) \times H^2(G, U(1)_{\mathfrak {p}})Z2​×H1(G,Z2​)×H2(G,U(1)p​) with a generalised Wall group law under stacking. We show that this index is an invariant of the classification of SPT phases. When the ground state is translation invariant and has reduced density matrices with uniformly bounded rank on finite intervals, we derive a fermionic matrix product representative of this state with on-site symmetry.
Recently, it has been shown that two-dimensional bosonic symmetry-protected topological(SPT) phases with on-site unitary symmetry GGG can be completely classified by the group cohomology class H3(G,U(1))H^3(G, \mathrm{U}(1))H3(G,U(1)). Later, group super-cohomology class was proposed as a partial classification for SPT phases of interacting fermions. In this work, we revisit this problem based on the mathematical framework of GGG-extension of unitary braided tensor category(UBTC) theory. We first reproduce the partial classifications given by group super-cohomology, then we show that with an additional H1(G,Z2)H^1(G, \mathbb{Z}_2)H1(G,Z2​) structure, a complete classification of SPT phases for two-dimensional interacting fermion systems for a total symmetry group G×Z2fG\times\mathbb{Z}_2^fG×Z2f​ can be achieved. We also discuss the classification of interacting fermionic SPT phases protected by time-reversal symmetry.
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