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arXiv:1702.00673 · Nuclear Physics B

Boundary-bulk relation in topological orders

Liang Kong, Xiao-Gang Wen, Hao Zheng

Published Jul 5, 2017• 86 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this paper, we study the relation between an anomaly-free n+1D topological order, which are often called n+1D topological order in physics literature, and its nD gapped boundary phases. We argue that the n+1D bulk anomaly-free topological order for a given nD gapped boundary phase is unique. This uniqueness defines the notion of the “bulk” for a given gapped boundary phase. In this paper, we show that the n+1D “bulk” phase is given by the “center” of the nD boundary phase. In other words, the geometric notion of the “bulk” corresponds precisely to the algebraic notion of the “center”. We achieve this by first introducing the notion of a morphism between two (potentially anomalous) topological orders of the same dimension, then proving that the notion of the “bulk” satisfies the same universal property as that of the “center” of an algebra in mathematics, i.e. “bulk = center”. The entire argument does not require us to know the precise mathematical description of a (potentially anomalous) topological order. This result leads to concrete physical predictions.

DOI
10.1016/j.nuclphysb.2017.06.023

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In this paper, we study the relation between an anomaly-free n+1D topological order, which are often called n+1D topological order in physics literature, and its nD gapped boundary phases. We argue that the n+1D bulk anomaly-free topological order for a given nD gapped boundary phase is unique. This uniqueness defines the notion of the “bulk” for a given gapped boundary phase. In this paper, we show that the n+1D “bulk” phase is given by the “center” of the nD boundary phase. In other words, the geometric notion of the “bulk” corresponds precisely to the algebraic notion of the “center”. We achieve this by first introducing the notion of a morphism between two (potentially anomalous) topological orders of the same dimension, then proving that the notion of the “bulk” satisfies the same universal property as that of the “center” of an algebra in mathematics, i.e. “bulk = center”. The entire argument does not require us to know the precise mathematical description of a (potentially anomalous) topological order. This result leads to concrete physical predictions.
In this paper, we study the relation between topological orders and their gapped boundaries. We propose that the bulk for a given gapped boundary theory is unique. It is actually a consequence of a microscopic definition of a local topological order, which is a (potentially anomalous) topological order defined on an open disk. Using this uniqueness, we show that the notion of "bulk" is equivalent to the notion of center in mathematics. We achieve this by first introducing the notion of a morphism between two local topological orders of the same dimension, then proving that the bulk satisfying the same universal property as that of the center in mathematics. We propose a classification (formulated as a macroscopic definition) of $n+$1D local topological orders by unitary multi-fusion nnn-categories, and explain that the notion of a morphism between two local topological orders is compatible with that of a unitary monoidal nnn-functor in a few low dimensional cases. We also explain in some low dimensional cases that this classification is compatible with the result of "bulk = center". In the end, we explain that above boundary-bulk relation is only the first layer of a hierarchical structure which can be summarized by the functoriality of the bulk (or center). This functoriality also provides the physical meanings of some well-known mathematical results on fusion 1-categories. This work can also be viewed as the first step towards a systematic study of the category of local topological orders, and the boundary-bulk relation actually provides a useful tool for this study.
This is the second part of a two-part work on the unified mathematical theory of gapped and gapless edges of 2+1D topological orders. In Part I, we have developed the mathematical theory of chiral gapless edges. In Part II, we study boundary-bulk relation and non-chiral gapless edges. In particular, we explain how the notion of the center of an enriched monoidal category naturally emerges from the boundary-bulk relation. After the study of 0+1D gapless walls, we give the complete boundary-bulk relation for 2+1D topological orders with chiral gapless edges (including gapped edges) and 0d walls between edges. This relation is stated precisely and proved rigorously as a monoidal equivalence, which generalizes the functoriality of the usual Drinfeld center to an enriched setting. We also develop the mathematical theory of non-chiral gapless edges and 0+1D walls, and explain how to gap out certain non-chiral 1+1D gapless edges and 0+1D gapless walls categorically. In the end, we show that all anomaly-free 1+1D boundary-bulk rational CFT's can be recovered from 2d topological orders with chiral gapless edges via a dimensional reduction process. This provides physical meanings to some mysterious connections between mathematical results in fusion categories and those in rational CFT's.
Abstract This is the first part of a two-part work on a unified mathematical theory of gapped and gapless edges of 2d topological orders. We analyze all the possible observables on the 1+1D world sheet of a chiral gapless edge of a 2d topological order, and show that these observables form an enriched unitary fusion category, the Drinfeld center of which is precisely the unitary modular tensor category associated to the bulk. This mathematical description of a chiral gapless edge automatically includes that of a gapped edge (i.e. a unitary fusion category) as a special case. Therefore, we obtain a unified mathematical description and a classification of both gapped and chiral gapless edges of a given 2d topological order. In the process of our analysis, we encounter an interesting and reoccurring phenomenon: spatial fusion anomaly, which leads us to propose the Principle of Universality at RG fixed points for all quantum field theories. Our theory also implies that all chiral gapless edges can be obtained from a so-called topological Wick rotations. This fact leads us to propose, at the end of this work, a surprising correspondence between gapped and gapless phases in all dimensions.
A bstract We develop a mathematical theory of symmetry protected trivial (SPT) orders and anomaly-free symmetry enriched topological (SET) orders in all dimensions via two different approaches with an emphasis on the second approach. The first approach is to gauge the symmetry in the same dimension by adding topological excitations as it was done in the 2d case, in which the gauging process is mathematically described by the minimal modular extensions of unitary braided fusion 1-categories. This 2d result immediately generalizes to all dimensions except in 1d, which is treated with special care. The second approach is to use the 1-dimensional higher bulk of the SPT/SET order and the boundary-bulk relation. This approach also leads us to a precise mathematical description and a classification of SPT/SET orders in all dimensions. The equivalence of these two approaches, together with known physical results, provides us with many precise mathematical predictions.
In this work, we give a mathematical description of a chiral gapless edge of a 2d topological order (without symmetry). We show that the observables on the 1+1D world sheet of such an edge consist of a family of topological edge excitations, boundary CFT's and walls between boundary CFT's. These observables can be described by a chiral algebra and an enriched monoidal category. This mathematical description automatically includes that of gapped edges as special cases. Therefore, it gives a unified framework to study both gapped and gapless edges. Moreover, the boundary-bulk duality also holds for gapless edges. More precisely, the unitary modular tensor category that describes the 2d bulk phase is exactly the Drinfeld center of the enriched monoidal category that describes the gapless/gapped edge. We propose a classification of all gapped and chiral gapless edges of a given bulk phase. In the end, we explain how modular-invariant bulk rational conformal field theories naturally emerge on certain gapless walls between two trivial phases.
Gravitational anomalies can be realized on the boundary of topologically ordered states in one higher dimension and are described by topological orders in one higher dimension. In this paper, we try to develop a general theory for both topological order and gravitational anomaly in any dimensions. (1) We introduce the notion of BF category to describe the braiding and fusion properties of topological excitations that can be point-like, string-like, etc. A subset of BF categories -- closed BF categories -- classify topological orders in any dimensions, while generic BF categories classify (potentially) anomalous topological orders that can appear at a boundary of a gapped quantum liquid in one higher dimension. (2) We introduce topological path integral based on tensor network to realize those topological orders. (3) Bosonic topological orders have an important topological invariant: the vector bundles of the degenerate ground states over the moduli spaces of closed spaces with different metrics. They may fully characterize topological orders. (4) We conjecture that a topological order has a gappable boundary iff the above mentioned vector bundles are flat. (5) We find a holographic phenomenon that every topological order with a gappable boundary can be uniquely determined by the knowledge of the boundary. As a consequence, BF categories in different dimensions form a (monoid) cochain complex, that reveals the structure and relation of topological orders and gravitational anomalies in different dimensions. We also studied the simplest kind of bosonic topological orders that have no non-trivial topological excitations. We find that this kind of topological orders form a Z\mathbb{Z}Z class in 2+1D (with gapless edge), a Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ class in 4+1D (with gappable boundary), and a Z⊕Z\mathbb{Z}\oplus \mathbb{Z}Z⊕Z class in 6+1D (with gapless boundary).