We show that a one-dimensional lattice of spinless fermions can undergo a topological phase transition only due to the effect of interaction. By allowing a dimerized interaction among the particles we show that the system exhibits a symmetry protected topological phase which does not exist in the absence of interaction and the system is a gapless state. The nontrivial topological character appears due to the onset of two degenerate bond-order phases as a function of dimerized interaction which are found to be topologically distinct from each other. As a result a topological phase transition occurs between these bond-order phases through a gap closing point. However, in the limit of strong interaction, the topologically distinct bond-order phases are separated from each other through a gapped charge density wave phase possessing a local antiferromagnetic order. We characterize this emergent topological nature by the edge states, Berry phase, and a nonlocal string order parameter and provide possible experimental signatures in terms of Thouless charge pumping and density-density correlation.
We show that a one-dimensional lattice of spinless fermions can undergo a topological phase transition only due to the effect of interaction. By allowing a dimerized interaction among the particles we show that the system exhibits a symmetry protected topological phase which does not exist in the absence of interaction and the system is a gapless state. The nontrivial topological character appears due to the onset of two degenerate bond-order phases as a function of dimerized interaction which are found to be topologically distinct from each other. As a result a topological phase transition occurs between these bond-order phases through a gap closing point. However, in the limit of strong interaction, the topologically distinct bond-order phases are separated from each other through a gapped charge density wave phase possessing a local antiferromagnetic order. We characterize this emergent topological nature by the edge states, Berry phase, and a nonlocal string order parameter and provide possible experimental signatures in terms of Thouless charge pumping and density-density correlation.
The low energy behavior of a huge variety of one-dimensional interacting spinful fermionic systems exhibits spin-charge separation, described in the continuum limit by two sine-Gordon models decoupled in the charge and spin channels. Interaction is known to induce, besides the gapless Luttinger liquid phase, eight possible gapped phases, among which are the Mott, Haldane, charge-/spin-density, and bond-ordered wave insulators, and the Luther Emery liquid. Here we prove that some of these physically distinct phases have nontrivial topological properties, notably the presence of degenerate protected edge modes with fractionalized charge/spin. Moreover, we show that the eight gapped phases are in one-to-one correspondence with the symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases classified by group cohomology theory in the presence of particle-hole symmetry P. The latter result is also exploited to characterize SPT phases by measurable nonlocal order parameters which follow the system evolution to the quantum phase transition. The implications on the appearance of exotic orders in the class of microscopic Hubbard Hamiltonians, possibly without P symmetry at higher energies, are discussed.
We investigate the ground state properties of spinless fermions on a two leg ladder, by allowing the nearest-neighbour hopping dimerization in one leg and uniform hopping in the other. In the non-interacting limit, we find that, at half-filling, the system exhibits robust topological behavior if the inter-leg hopping is allowed. Though depending on the dimerization pattern, the dimerized leg can be either topological or trivial in nature, here we show that by connecting such a leg to a uniform leg through inter-chain coupling, the overall system becomes topological irrespective of the dimerization pattern in the dimerized leg. As a result, a topological phase transition occurs as a function of the inter-leg hopping. When the inter-leg interaction is turned on, the topological phase survives, and we obtain an interaction induced topological phase transition. Finally, we reveal that when uniform interactions are included on all the bonds of the ladder, the topological phase transitions to a symmetry-broken charge-density wave (CDW) phase.
We consider a one-dimensional, time-reversal-invariant system with attractive interactions and spin-orbit coupling. Such a system is gapless due to the strong quantum fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter. However, we show that a sharply defined topological phase with protected, exponentially localized edge states exists. If one of the spin components is conserved, the protection of the edge modes can be understood as a consequence of the presence of a spin gap. In the more general case, the localization of the edge states arises from a gap to single-particle excitations in the bulk. We consider specific microscopic models and demonstrate both analytically and numerically (using density matrix renormalization group calculations) that they can support the topologically nontrivial phase.
We demonstrate the existence of a topologically nontrivial phase in a one-dimensional fermionic lattice system subjected to synthetic gauge fields, which is beyond the standard Altland-Zirnbauer classification of topological insulators. The topological phase can be characterized by the presence of degenerate zero-mode edge states or a quantized Berry phase of the occupied Bloch band. By analyzing symmetries of the system, we identify that the topological phase and zero-mode edge states are protected by two hidden symmetries. An extended model with hidden symmetry breaking is also studied in order to reveal the effect of hidden symmetries on the symmetry-protected topological phase.
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting bosonic systems have been widely explored, with many realizations emerging from the interplay of interactions, lattice geometry, and occupancy constraints. Here we investigate a dimerized bosonic lattice model with a local parity coupling and demonstrate that it supports a rich phase diagram containing topological phases at various fillings. Using density matrix renormalization group simulations, we identify two distinct topological regimes absent in the purely dimerized limit: an SPT phase at half filling stabilized by positive parity coupling and a paired-boson topological phase at unit filling, stabilized by negative parity coupling. While the latter is adiabatically connected to a trivial phase and is not symmetry protected in the conventional sense, it exhibits nontrivial topological signatures associated with paired bosons in the constrained Hilbert space. Our results establish local parity coupling as a useful framework for understanding and characterizing topological phases in one-dimensional bosonic systems.
Topological insulators in free fermion systems have been well characterized and classified. However, it is not clear in strongly interacting boson or fermion systems what symmetry-protected topological orders exist. In this paper, we present a model in a two-dimensional (2D) interacting spin system with nontrivial onsite Z2 symmetry-protected topological order. The order is nontrivial because we can prove that the one-dimensional (1D) system on the boundary must be gapless if the symmetry is not broken, which generalizes the gaplessness of Wess-Zumino-Witten model for Lie symmetry groups to any discrete symmetry groups. The construction of this model is related to a nontrivial 3-cocycle of the Z2 group and can be generalized to any symmetry group. It potentially leads to a complete classification of symmetry-protected topological orders in interacting boson and fermion systems of any dimension. Specifically, this exactly solvable model has a unique gapped ground state on any closed manifold and gapless excitations on the boundary if Z2 symmetry is not broken. We prove the latter by developing the tool of a matrix product unitary operator to study the nonlocal symmetry transformation on the boundary and reveal the nontrivial 3-cocycle structure of this transformation. Similar ideas are used to construct a 2D fermionic model with onsite Z2 symmetry-protected topological order.