Abstract We propose a family of order parameters to detect the symmetry fractionalization class of anyons in 2D topological phases. This fractionalization class accounts for the projective, as opposed to linear, representations of the symmetry group on the anyons. We focus on quantum double models on a lattice enriched with an internal symmetry in the framework of G-isometric projected entangled pair states. Unlike previous schemes based on reductions to effective 1D systems (dimensional compactification), the order parameters presented here can be probed on genuinely two-dimensional geometries, and are local: they rely on operations on few neighbouring particles in the bulk. The power of these order parameters is illustrated with several combinations of topological content and symmetry. We demonstrate that a strictly finer phase distinction than that provided by dimensional compactification can be obtained. As particular examples, the resolution power of these order parameters is illustrated for a case with non-abelian topological order, and for another with symmetries that involves permutation of anyons.
Abstract We propose a family of order parameters to detect the symmetry fractionalization class of anyons in 2D topological phases. This fractionalization class accounts for the projective, as opposed to linear, representations of the symmetry group on the anyons. We focus on quantum double models on a lattice enriched with an internal symmetry in the framework of G-isometric projected entangled pair states. Unlike previous schemes based on reductions to effective 1D systems (dimensional compactification), the order parameters presented here can be probed on genuinely two-dimensional geometries, and are local: they rely on operations on few neighbouring particles in the bulk. The power of these order parameters is illustrated with several combinations of topological content and symmetry. We demonstrate that a strictly finer phase distinction than that provided by dimensional compactification can be obtained. As particular examples, the resolution power of these order parameters is illustrated for a case with non-abelian topological order, and for another with symmetries that involves permutation of anyons.
This thesis contributes to the understanding of symmetry-enriched topological phases focusing on their descriptions in terms of tensor network states. The Projected Entangled Pair State (PEPS) formalism allows us to locally encode the main properties of the models (like topological order, symmetries and their interplay) in the tensors. We have used that encoding to classify, construct and detect some classes of symmetry-enriched topological phases in 2D PEPS. For that purpose, we have studied what the allowed freedom in the tensors generating the same tensor network state is. These results are the so-called 'fundamental theorems' and they give the necessary knowledge to properly study symmetries (actions that leave the states invariant). We focus our study on the family of PEPS describing quantum double models of G, the so-called G-injective PEPS, and on global on-site symmetries coming from a finite group Q: as a result of the classification we have a finite number of phases closely related to the theory of group extensions. We also provide the maps that appear in group extension theory with physical meaning and we characterize their actions on the ground subspace and on the anyons. We construct a representative of each class of our classification. Moreover, we connect our construction with an interesting physical phenomenon, the so-called anyon condensation, which describes topological phase transitions. We have also proposed a family of gauge invariant quantities and their corresponding order parameters (in the form of expectation values of a local operator in 2D) to detect the corresponding quantum phases, in particular their symmetry fractionalization patterns. We conclude this thesis by touching on some mathematical open problems in PEPS.
Topological order in two-dimensions can be described in terms of deconfined quasiparticle excitations—anyons—and their braiding statistics. However, it has recently been realized that this data does not completely describe the situation in the presence of an unbroken global symmetry. In this case, there can be multiple distinct quantum phases with the same anyons and statistics, but with different patterns of symmetry fractionalization—termed symmetry enriched topological order. When the global symmetry group G , which we take to be discrete, does not change topological superselection sectors—i.e. does not change one type of anyon into a different type of anyon—one can imagine a local version of the action of G around each anyon. This leads to projective representations and a group cohomology description of symmetry fractionalization, with the second cohomology group H 2 ( G , A a b e l i a n ) being the relevant group. In this paper, we treat the general case of a symmetry group G possibly permuting anyon types. We show that despite the lack of a local action of G , one can still make sense of a so-called twisted group cohomology description of symmetry fractionalization, and show how this data is encoded in the associativity of fusion rules of the extrinsic ‘twist’ defects of the symmetry. Furthermore, building on work of Hermele (2014 Phys. Rev. B 90 184418 ), we construct a wide class of exactly-solvable models which exhibit this twisted symmetry fractionalization, and connect them to our formal framework.
In this thesis, we study the topological phases of quantum spin systems. One project is to investigate a class of anti-ferromagnetic SU(N) Heisenberg models, describing Mott insulators of fermionic ultra-cold alkaline earth atoms on the three-dimensional simple cubic lattice. Our large-N analysis maps a rich phase diagram. One particularly striking state we found spontaneously breaks lattice rotation symmetry, where the cubic lattice breaks up into bilayers, each of which forms a two-dimensional chiral spin liquid state. In the other projects, we study the phenomenon of symmetry fractionalization on anyons as a tool to characterize two-dimensional symmetry enriched topological phases. In particular, we focus on how crystalline symmetries may fractionalize in gapped Z2 spin liquids. If the system has the symmetry of the square lattice, then there are 2080 symmetry fractionalization patterns possible. With exactly solvable models, we realize 487 of these in strictly two-dimensional systems. In addition, we succeed to understand why the remaining patterns cannot be found in the family of models we construct. Some can only appear on the surface of three-dimensional systems with non-trivial point group symmetry protected topological (pgSPT) order, whose boundary degrees of freedom transform non-locally under the symmetries. We construct a simple toy model to show this anomalous crystalline symmetry fractionalization phenomenon associated with a reflection. Moreover, our approach establishes the connection between the pgSPT phases and the topological phases with on-site symmetries in lower dimensions. This insight is very useful for classification of pgSPT orders in general.
The hallmark of a two-dimensional (2d) topologically ordered phase is the existence of deconfined ``anyon'' excitations that have exotic braiding and exchange statistics, different from those of ordinary bosons or fermions. As opposed to conventional Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson phases, which are classified on the basis of the spontaneous breaking of an underlying symmetry, topologically ordered phases, such as those occurring in the fractional quantum Hall effect, are absolutely stable, not requiring any such symmetry. Recently, though, it has been realized that symmetries, which may still be present in such systems, can give rise to a host of new, distinct, many-body phases, all of which share the same underlying topological order. These ``symmetry enriched'' topological (SET) phases are distinguished not on the basis of anyon braiding statistics alone, but also by the symmetry properties of the anyons, such as their fractional charges, or the way that different anyons are permuted by the symmetry. Thus a useful approach to classifying SETs is to determine all possible such symmetry actions on the anyons that are algebraically consistent with the anyon statistics. Remarkably, however, there exist symmetry actions that, despite being algebraically consistent, cannot be realized in any physical system, and hence do not lead to valid 2d SETs. One class of such ``anomalous'' SETs, characterized by certain disallowed symmetry fractionalization patterns, finds a physical interpretation as an allowed surface state of certain three-dimensional (3d) short-range entangled phases, but another, characterized by some seemingly valid but anomalous permutation actions of the symmetry on the anyons and encoded in an H3(G,A) group cohomology class, has so far eluded a physical interpretation. In this work, we find a way to physically realize these anomalously permuting SETs at the surfaces of certain 3d long-range entangled phases, expanding our understanding of general anomalous SETs in two dimensions.
Topological phases exhibit unconventional order that cannot be detected by any local order parameter. In the framework of projected entangled pair states, topological order is characterized by an entanglement symmetry of the local tensor that describes the model. This symmetry can take the form of a tensor product of group representations [for quantum double models D(G) of a group G], or in the more general case a correlated symmetry action in the form of a matrix product operator (MPO), which encompasses all string-net models, including those that are not quantum double models. Among other things, these entanglement symmetries allow for the succinct description of ground states and topological excitations (anyons). Recently, the idea has been put forward to use those symmetries and the anyonic objects they describe as order parameters for probing topological phase transitions, and the applicability of this idea has been demonstrated for Abelian groups. In this paper, we extend this construction to the domain of non-Abelian models with MPO symmetries, and we use it to study the breakdown of topological order in the double Fibonacci (DFib) string-net model and its Galois conjugate, namely the non-Hermitian double Yang-Lee (DYL) string-net model. We start by showing how to construct topological order parameters for condensation and deconfinement of anyons using the MPO symmetries. Subsequently, we set up interpolations from the DFib and the DYL model to the trivial phase, and we show that these can be mapped to certain restricted solid on solid (RSOS) models, which are equivalent to the $[(5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\sqrt{5})/2]$-state Potts model, respectively. Moreover, the order parameter for condensation maps to the RSOS order parameter. The known exact solutions of the statistical models subsequently allow us to locate the critical points of the models, and to predict the critical exponents for the order parameters from conformal field theory. We complement this by numerical study of the phase transitions, which fully confirms our theoretical predictions; remarkably, we find that both models exhibit a duality between the behavior of order parameters for condensation and deconfinement.
We study a simple model of symmetry-enriched topological order obtained by decorating a toric code model with lower-dimensional symmetry-protected topological states. We show that the symmetry fractionalization in this model can be characterized by string order parameters, and that these signatures are robust under the effects of external fields and interactions, up to the phase transition point. This extends the recent proposal of Garre-Rubio and Iblisdir [New J. Phys. 21, 113016 (2019)] beyond the setting of fixed-point tensor network states, and solidifies string order parameters as a useful tool to characterize and detect symmetry fractionalization. In addition to this, we observe how the condensation of an anyon that fractionalizes a symmetry forces that symmetry to spontaneously break, and we give a proof of this in the framework of projected entangled pair states. This phenomenon leads to a notable change in the phase diagram of the toric code in parallel magnetic fields