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arXiv:2208.11710 · Physical Review Letters

Extracting the Quantum Hall Conductance from a Single Bulk Wave Function

Ruihua Fan, Rahul Sahay, Ashvin Vishwanath

Published Nov 1, 2023• 25 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose a new formula that extracts the quantum Hall conductance from a single (2+1)D gapped wave function. The formula applies to general many-body systems that conserve particle number, and is based on the concept of modular flow, i.e., unitary dynamics generated from the entanglement structure of the wave function. The formula is shown to satisfy all formal properties of the Hall conductance: it is odd under time reversal and reflection, even under charge conjugation, universal and topologically rigid in the thermodynamic limit. Further evidence for relating the formula to the Hall conductance is obtained from conformal field theory arguments. Finally, we numerically check the formula by applying it to a noninteracting Chern band where excellent agreement is obtained.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.131.186301

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•Jan 1, 2016•0 citations
We propose a new formula that extracts the quantum Hall conductance from a single (2+1)D gapped wave function. The formula applies to general many-body systems that conserve particle number, and is based on the concept of modular flow, i.e., unitary dynamics generated from the entanglement structure of the wave function. The formula is shown to satisfy all formal properties of the Hall conductance: it is odd under time reversal and reflection, even under charge conjugation, universal and topologically rigid in the thermodynamic limit. Further evidence for relating the formula to the Hall conductance is obtained from conformal field theory arguments. Finally, we numerically check the formula by applying it to a noninteracting Chern band where excellent agreement is obtained.
Recent years have witnessed significant progress in the entanglement-based characterization of quantum phases of matter. The primary objects of interest are the reduced density matrix and its associated entanglement Hamiltonian. As intrinsic properties of a quantum state, these quantities theoretically determine all experimentally accessible local observables. In this work, we investigate the response of two entanglement measures to the real-time dynamics driven by the entanglement Hamiltonian--a process known as modular flow. We demonstrate that our results can be unified into a single generating function, ⟨ρABαeλQABeμQBCρBCβ⟩\langleρ_{AB}^α\mathrm{e}^{λ{Q}_{AB}}\mathrm{e}^{μ{Q}_{BC}}ρ_{BC}^β\rangle⟨ρABα​eλQAB​eμQBC​ρBCβ​⟩. This function is of independent interest as it represents a generalization of the recently proposed Rényi modular commutator. In appropriate limits, this function yields the response of Rényi entropy and its charged version, which we find to be uniquely determined by chiral topological invariants, specifically the chiral central charge and the Hall conductance. Our analytical findings are validated through two independent approaches: (i) free fermion systems using the real-space Chern number formula, and (ii) an effective field theory treatment that regularizes the entanglement cut via chiral conformal field theory. Both methods yield consistent results.
In Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 176402 (2022), we argued that the chiral central charge---a topologically protected quantity characterizing the edge theory of a gapped (2+1)(2+1)(2+1)-dimensional system---can be extracted from the bulk by using an order parameter called the modular commutator. In this paper, we reveal general properties of the modular commutator and strengthen its relationship with the chiral central charge. First, we identify connections between the modular commutator and conditional mutual information, time reversal, and modular flow. Second, we prove, within the framework of the entanglement bootstrap program, that two topologically ordered media connected by a gapped domain wall must have the same modular commutator in their respective bulk. Third, we numerically calculate the value of the modular commutator for a bosonic lattice Laughlin state for finite sizes and extrapolate to the infinite-volume limit. The result of this extrapolation is consistent with the proposed formula up to an error of about 0.70.7%0.7.
The quantized Hall conductivity of integer and fractional quantum Hall (IQH and FQH) states is directly related to a topological invariant, the many-body Chern number. The conventional calculation of this invariant in interacting systems requires a family of many-body wave functions parameterized by twist angles to calculate the Berry curvature. In this paper, we demonstrate how to extract the Chern number given a single many-body wave function, without knowledge of the Hamiltonian. For FQH states, our method requires one additional integer invariant as input: the number of $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ flux quanta, sss, that must be inserted to obtain a topologically trivial excitation. As we discuss, sss can be obtained in principle from the degenerate set of ground state wave functions on the torus, without knowledge of the Hamiltonian. We perform extensive numerical simulations involving IQH and FQH states to validate these methods.
We apply modular flow-entanglement generated dynamics-to characterize quantum orders of ground state wave functions. In particular, we study the linear response of the entanglement entropy of a simply connected region with respect to modular flow. First, we apply it to (1+1)D conformal field theories and demonstrate its relationship to the chiral central charge-or, equivalently, the perturbative gravitational anomaly-which is shown to vanish. Next, we apply it to (2+1)D gapped ground states where it reduces to a recently proposed formula by Kim et al. that is conjectured to compute the edge chiral central charge. Modular flow provides an intuitive picture for this conjecture based on bulk-edge correspondence. We also provide numerics on free-fermion models that lend support to our picture.
A (2+1)D topological ordered phase with U(1) symmetry may or may not have a symmetric gapped edge state, even if both thermal and electric Hall conductivity are vanishing. It is recently discovered that there are "higher" versions of Hall conductivity valid for fermionic fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states, which obstructs symmetry-preserving gapped edge state beyond thermal and electric Hall conductivity. In this paper, we show that one can extract higher Hall conductivity from a single wave function of an FQH state, by evaluating the expectation value of the "partial rotation" unitary which is a combination of partial spatial rotation and a U(1) phase rotation. This result is verified numerically with the fermionic Laughlin state with ν=1/3ν=1/3ν=1/3, 1/51/51/5, as well as the non-Abelian Moore-Read state. Together with topological entanglement entropy, we prove that the expectation values of the partial rotation completely determines if a bosonic/fermionic Abelian topological order with U(1) symmetry has a symmetry-preserving gappable edge state or not. We also show that thermal and electric Hall conductivity of Abelian topological order can be extracted by partial rotations. Even in non-Abelian FQH states, partial rotation provides the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis type theorem constraining the low-energy spectrum of the bulk-boundary system. The generalization of higher Hall conductivity to the case with Lie group symmetry is also presented.
The quantum Hall effect is one of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics in which many rare physical phenomena like fractional charges and generally the fractional statistics are involved. In the integer quantum Hall effect the role of the disorder is more than others. The important point in describing these systems is that their bulk states should be gapful and in this sense the system should be incompressible. For describing the electron condensates in an arbitrary filling fraction with the odd denominator one needs the topological U(1) Chern-Simons effective field theory. Our motivation for using these field theories is the emergence of quantized conductivity. This effective field theory also has the ability of constructing the hierarchical fractional condensates with various filling factors. The excitations of these theories have fractional statistics which are investigated in this review. The non-Abelian Chern-Simons for quantum Hall systems will be also investigated. The interesting point is that the edge states of these systems are gapless and their excitations are equipped with the Kac-Moody algebra. The connection to the conformal field theories can be established using this point. The investigation of this correspondence is one of the aims of the present thesis. The connection to the logarithmic conformal field theories (e.g. for the Haldane-Rezaei wave function) is also reported in some works which will be addressed in this thesis.