Until recently, a careful derivation of the fusion structure of anyons from some underlying physical principles has been lacking. In Shi et al. (2020), the authors achieved this goal by starting from a conjectured form of entanglement area law for 2D gapped systems. In this work, we instead start with the principle of exchange symmetry, and determine the minimal prescription of additional postulates needed to make contact with unitary ribbon fusion categories as the appropriate algebraic framework for modelling anyons. Assuming that 2D quasiparticles are spatially localised, we build a functor from the coloured braid groupoid to the category of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Using this functor, we construct a precise notion of exchange symmetry, allowing us to recover the core fusion properties of anyons. In particular, given a system of n quasiparticles, we show that the action of a certain n-braid βn uniquely specifies its superselection sectors. We then provide an overview of the braiding and fusion structure of anyons in the usual setting of braided 6j fusion systems. By positing the duality axiom of Kitaev (2006) and assuming that there are finitely many distinct topological charges, we arrive at the framework of ribbon categories.
Until recently, a careful derivation of the fusion structure of anyons from some underlying physical principles has been lacking. In Shi et al. (2020), the authors achieved this goal by starting from a conjectured form of entanglement area law for 2D gapped systems. In this work, we instead start with the principle of exchange symmetry, and determine the minimal prescription of additional postulates needed to make contact with unitary ribbon fusion categories as the appropriate algebraic framework for modelling anyons. Assuming that 2D quasiparticles are spatially localised, we build a functor from the coloured braid groupoid to the category of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Using this functor, we construct a precise notion of exchange symmetry, allowing us to recover the core fusion properties of anyons. In particular, given a system of n quasiparticles, we show that the action of a certain n-braid βn uniquely specifies its superselection sectors. We then provide an overview of the braiding and fusion structure of anyons in the usual setting of braided 6j fusion systems. By positing the duality axiom of Kitaev (2006) and assuming that there are finitely many distinct topological charges, we arrive at the framework of ribbon categories.
Fusion surface models generalize the concept of anyon chains to 2+1 dimensions, utilizing fusion 2-categories as their input. We investigate bond-algebraic dualities in these systems and show that distinct module tensor categories \mathcal{M} ℳ over the same braided fusion category \mathcal{B} ℬ give rise to dual lattice models. This extends the 1+1d result that dualities in anyon chains are classified by module categories over fusion categories. We analyze two concrete examples: (i) a \text{Rep}(S_3) Rep ( S 3 ) model with a constrained Hilbert space, dual to the spin- \tfrac{1}{2} 1 2 XXZ model on the honeycomb lattice, and (ii) a bilayer Kitaev honeycomb model, dual to a spin- \tfrac{1}{2} 1 2 model with XXZ and Ising interactions. Unlike regular \mathcal{M}=\mathcal{B} ℳ = ℬ fusion surface models, which conserve only 1-form symmetries, models constructed from \mathcal{M} ≠ \mathcal{B} ℳ ≠ ℬ can exhibit both 1-form and 0-form symmetries, including non-invertible ones.
This is the continuation of our study of the Levin-Wen model based on an arbitrary unitary fusion category C on the infinite plane. The ground state of the Levin-Wen model hosts anyonic excitations whose fusion and braiding properties are captured by the associated braided C∗-tensor category of superselection sectors SSS. By constructing explicit isomorphisms between the fusion spaces of SSS and those of the Drinfeld center Z(C), we show that these two categories have isomorphic F- and R-symbols. It follows that the full subcategory of finite sectors is unitarily braided monoidally equivalent to the Drinfeld center, SSSf≃Z(C). This provides the first complete characterisation of the category of superselection sectors for a class of two-dimensional lattice models supporting anyons with non-integer quantum dimensions.
We propose a framework for fusion category symmetry on the (1+1)D lattice in the infinite-volume limit by giving a formal interpretation of SymTFT decompositions. Our approach is based on axiomatizing physical boundary subalgebra of quasi-local observables, and applying ideas from algebraic quantum field theory to derive the expected categorical structures. We show that given a physical boundary subalgebra B of a quasi-local algebra A, there is a canonical fusion category C that acts on A by bimodules and whose fusion ring acts by locality preserving quantum channels on the quasi-local algebra such that B is recovered as the fixed point operators. We show that a fusion category can be realized as symmetries on a tensor product quasi-local algebra if and only if all of its objects have integer dimensions, and that it admits an ``on-site" action on a tensor product spin chain if and only if it admits a fiber functor. We give a formal definition of a topological symmetric state, and prove two anomaly enforced gaplessness theorems, one for internal categorical symmetries and one for anomalous duality channels. Using the first, we show that for any fusion category C with no fiber functor there always exist gapless pure symmetric states on an anyon chain.
Unitary Ribbon Fusion Categories (URFC) formalize anyonic theories. It has been widely assumed that the same category formalizes a topological quantum computing model. However, in previous work, we addressed and resolved this confusion and demonstrated while the former could be any fusion category, the latter is always a subcategory of Hilb. In this paper, we argue that a categorical formalism that captures and unifies both anyonic theories (the Hardware of quantum computing) and a model of topological quantum computing is a braided (fusion) 2-category. In this 2-category, 0-morphisms describe anyonic types and Hom-categories describe different models of quantum computing. This picture provides an insightful perspective on superselection rules. It presents furthermore a clear distinction between fusion of anyons versus tensor products as defined in linear algebra, between vector spaces of 1-morphisms. The former represents a monoidal product and sum between 0-morphisms and the latter a tensor product and direct sum between 1-morphisms.
Anyons in 2+1 dimensions are not only characterized by exotic braiding statistics but also by intricate fusion properties. Two anyons may fuse into multiple topological charge sectors, and associativity of fusing three anyons to produce a fixed charge sector is governed by F-symbols. While braiding invariants, such as the modular data, are typically complex valued, a complete description of general anyon models requires understanding the arithmetic properties of its fusion associativity data as well. The F-symbols for many of the most common 2+1d topological orders, including all Abelian anyon models as well as Fibonacci and Ising anyons, can be made real valued. We show this phenomenon is not universal by exhibiting braided fusion categories whose F-symbols cannot be made real. We call such F-symbols "inherently complex." The examples we study lack a charge-conjugation symmetry and our results are therefore consistent with the converse of a statement proved in a companion work linking real F-symbols in braided fusion categories with the existence of a suitable charge-conjugation symmetry. We analyse the smallest-rank braided fusion categories we know of with inherently complex F-symbols: Rep(Z7⋊Z3) and Rep(Z5⋊Z4). Consequently, the corresponding Z(Rep(Z7⋊Z3)) and Z(Rep(Z5⋊Z4)) anyon models also have inherently complex F-symbols. Our presentation connects these examples with recent results on classifying anyons beyond modular data.
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.