At a fixed magnetic filling fraction, fractional quantum Hall states may display a plethora of interaction-induced competing phases. Effective Chern-Simons theories have suggested the existence of multiple interaction-induced short-range entangled phases also at integer quantum Hall plateaus. Among these, a bosonic phase has been proposed with edge modes carrying representations based on the
E8 exceptional Lie algebra. Through a theoretical coupled-wire construction, we provide an explicit microscopic model for this
E8 Abelian quantum Hall state, at filling $\ensuremath{\nu}=16$, and discuss how it is intimately related to topological paramagnets in
3+1 dimensions. Still using coupled wires, we partition the
E8 state into a pair of non-Abelian, long-range entangled states. These two states occur at filling $\ensuremath{\nu}=8$, demonstrating that even topological order may also exist at integer Hall plateaus. These phases are bosonic, carry chiral edge theories with either
G2 or
F4 internal symmetries, and host Fibonacci anyonic excitations in the bulk. This suggests that the $\ensuremath{\nu}=8$ quantum Hall plateau may provide an unexpected platform to realize decoherence-free quantum computation by anyon braiding. We also find that these topological ordered phases are related by a notion of particle-hole conjugation based on the
E8 state that exchanges the
G2 and
F4 Fibonacci states. We argue that these phases can be tracked down by their electric and thermal Hall transport satisfying a distinctive Wiedemann-Franz law $\left({\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{xy}/{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{xy}\right)/\left[\left({\ensuremath{\pi}}^{2}{k}_{B}^{2}T\right)/3{e}^{2}\right]<1$, even at integer magnetic filling factors.
Identifying topological phases in strongly interacting many-body systems is a very challenging task, especially beyond fine-tuned exactly solvable models. The construction of topological phases from coupled quantum wires provides a controllable and systematic theoretical handle to those interactions. The authors show an explicit connection between the coupled wire construction and a lattice Hamiltonian of interacting bosons, which host a
U(1) symmetry-protected topological phase (also referred to as the bosonic integer quantum Hall state).
We study topological phases of interacting systems in two spatial dimensions in the absence of topological order (i.e., with a unique ground state on closed manifolds and no fractional excitations). These are the closest interacting analogs of integer quantum Hall states, topological insulators, and superconductors. We adapt the well-known Chern-Simons
K-matrix description of quantum Hall states to classify such ``integer'' topological phases. Our main result is a general formalism that incorporates symmetries into the
K-matrix description. Remarkably, this simple analysis yields the same list of topological phases as a recent group cohomology classification, and in addition provides field theories and explicit edge theories for all these phases. The bosonic topological phases, which only appear in the presence of interactions and which remain well defined in the presence of disorder, include (i) bosonic insulators with a Hall conductance quantized to even integers, (ii) a bosonic analog of quantum spin Hall insulators, and (iii) a bosonic analog of a chiral topological superconductor, whose
K matrix is the Cartan matrix of Lie group
E8. We also discuss interacting fermion systems where symmetries are realized in a projective fashion, where we find the present formalism can handle a wider range of symmetries than a recent group super-cohomology classification. Lastly, we construct microscopic models of these phases from coupled one-dimensional systems.
In two dimensions strongly interacting bosons in a magnetic field can form an integer quantum Hall state. This state has a bulk gap, no fractional charges or topological order in the bulk, but nevertheless quantized Hall transport and symmetry-protected edge excitations. Here we study a simple microscopic model for such a state in a system of two-component bosons in a strong orbital magnetic field. We show through exact-diagonalization calculations that the model supports the boson integer quantum Hall ground state in a range of parameters.
We study
N-component interacting particles (hardcore bosons and fermions) loaded in topological lattice models with
SU(N)-invariant interactions based on exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group method. By tuning the interplay of interspecies and intraspecies interactions, we demonstrate that a class of
SU(N) fractional quantum Hall states can emerge at fractional filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}=N/(N+1)$ for bosons [$\ensuremath{\nu}=N/(2N+1)$ for fermions] in the lowest Chern band, characterized by the nontrivial fractional Hall responses and the fractional charge pumping. Moreover, we establish a topological characterization based on the
K matrix and discuss the close relationship to the fractional quantum Hall physics in topological flat bands with Chern number
N.
In this thesis we investigate topological phases of matter that have a global, unbroken symmetry group -- also known as symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases. We address three questions about these phases: (1) how can we build exactly solvable models that realize them? (2) how can we determine if their edge theories can be gapped without breaking the symmetry? and (3) how do we understand the phenomenon of decoupled charge and neutral modes which occurs in certain fractional quantum Hall states? ,More specifically, we address the first question by constructing exactly solvable models for a wide class of symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases, which we call symmetry-enriched string nets. The construction applies to 2D bosonic SET phases with finite unitary onsite symmetry group G, and we conjecture that our models realize every phase in this class that can be described by a commuting projector Hamiltonian. As an example, we present a model for a phase with the same anyon excitations as the toric code and with a Z2 symmetry which exchanges the 'e' and 'm' type anyons. We further illustrate our construction with a number of additional examples. ,For the second question, we focus on the edge theories of 2D SET phases with Z2 symmetry. The central problem we seek to solve is to determine which edge theories can be gapped without breaking the symmetry. Previous attempts to answer this question in special cases relied on constructing perturbations of a particular type to gap the edge. This method proves the edge can be gapped when the appropriate perturbations can be found, but is inconclusive if they cannot be found. We build on this previous work by deriving a necessary and sufficient algebraic condition for when the edge can be gapped. Our results apply to Z2 symmetry protected topological phases as well as Abelian Z2 SET phases,Finally, in the fourth chapter, we describe solvable models that capture how impurity scattering in certain fractional quantum Hall edges can give rise to a neutral mode --- i.e. an edge mode that does not carry electric charge. These models consist of two counter-propagating chiral Luttinger liquids together with a collection of discrete impurity scatterers. Our main result is an exact solution of these models in the limit of infinitely strong impurity scattering. From this solution, we explicitly derive the existence of a neutral mode and we determine all of its microscopic properties including its velocity. We also study the stability of the neutral mode and show that it survives at finite but sufficiently strong scattering. Our results are applicable to a family of Abelian fractional quantum Hall states of which the nu = 2/3 state is the most prominent example.