In previous work, it was shown that non-trivial gapped states can be generated from a product state using a sequential quantum circuit. Explicit circuit constructions were given for a variety of gapped states at exactly solvable fixed points. In this paper, we show that a similar generation procedure can be established for chiral topological states as well, despite the fact that they lack a zero-correlation-length exactly solvable form. Instead of sequentially applying local unitary gates, we sequentially evolve the Hamiltonian by changing local terms in one subregion and then the next. The Hamiltonian remains gapped throughout the process, giving rise to an adiabatic evolution mapping the ground state from a product state to a chiral topological state. We demonstrate such a sequential adiabatic generation process for free fermion chiral states like the Chern Insulator and the p+ip p + i p superconductor. Moreover, we show that coupling a quantum state to a discrete gauge group can be achieved through a sequential quantum circuit, thereby generating interacting chiral topological states from the free fermion ones.
In previous work, it was shown that non-trivial gapped states can be generated from a product state using a sequential quantum circuit. Explicit circuit constructions were given for a variety of gapped states at exactly solvable fixed points. In this paper, we show that a similar generation procedure can be established for chiral topological states as well, despite the fact that they lack a zero-correlation-length exactly solvable form. Instead of sequentially applying local unitary gates, we sequentially evolve the Hamiltonian by changing local terms in one subregion and then the next. The Hamiltonian remains gapped throughout the process, giving rise to an adiabatic evolution mapping the ground state from a product state to a chiral topological state. We demonstrate such a sequential adiabatic generation process for free fermion chiral states like the Chern Insulator and the p+ip p + i p superconductor. Moreover, we show that coupling a quantum state to a discrete gauge group can be achieved through a sequential quantum circuit, thereby generating interacting chiral topological states from the free fermion ones.
Finite-depth quantum circuits preserve the long-range entanglement structure in quantum states and map between states within a gapped phase. To map between states of different gapped phases, we can use sequential quantum circuits, which apply unitary transformations to local patches, strips, or other subregions of a system in a sequential way. The sequential structure of the circuit, on the one hand, preserves entanglement area law and hence the gappedness of the quantum states. On the other hand, the circuit has generically a linear depth, hence, it is capable of changing the long-range correlation and entanglement of quantum states and the phase they belong to. In this paper, we systematically discuss the definition, basic properties, and prototypical examples of sequential quantum circuits that map product states to Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, symmetry-protected topological states, intrinsic topological states, and fracton states. We discuss the physical interpretation of the power of the circuits through connection to condensation, Kramers-Wannier duality, and the notion of foliation for fracton phases.
The classification of topological phases of matter is a fundamental challenge in quantum many-body physics, with applications to quantum technology. Recently, this classification has been extended to the setting of adaptive finite-depth local unitary (AFDLU) circuits, which allow global classical communication. In this setting, the trivial phase is the collection of all topological states that can be prepared via AFDLU. Here, we propose a complete classification of the trivial phase by showing how to prepare all solvable anyon theories that admit a gapped boundary via AFDLU, extending recent results on solvable groups. Our construction includes non-Abelian anyons with irrational quantum dimensions, such as Ising anyons, and more general acyclic anyons. Specifically, we introduce a sequential gauging procedure, with an AFDLU implementation, to produce a string-net ground state in any topological phase described by a solvable anyon theory with gapped boundary. In addition, we introduce a sequential ungauging and regauging procedure, with an AFDLU implementation, to apply string operators of arbitrary length for anyons and symmetry twist defects in solvable anyon theories. We apply our procedure to the quantum double of the group S 3 and to several examples that are beyond solvable groups, including the doubled Ising theory, the Z 3 Tambara-Yamagami string net, and doubled SU ( 2 ) 4 anyons.
We show that projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) in two spatial dimensions can describe chiral topological states by explicitly constructing a family of such states with a nontrivial Chern number. They are ground states of two different kinds of free-fermion Hamiltonians: (i) local and gapless; (ii) gapped, but with hopping amplitudes that decay according to a power law. We derive general conditions on topological free-fermionic projected entangled-pair states that show that they cannot correspond to exact ground states of gapped, local parent Hamiltonians and provide numerical evidence demonstrating that they can nevertheless approximate well the physical properties of topological insulators with local Hamiltonians at arbitrary temperatures.
We consider fixed-point models for topological phases of matter formulated as discrete path integrals in the language of tensor networks. Such zero-correlation length models with an exact notion of topological invariance are known in the mathematical community as state-sum constructions or lattice topological quantum field theories. All of the established ansatzes for fixed-point models imply the existence of a gapped boundary as well as a commuting-projector Hamiltonian. Thus, they fail to capture topological phases without a gapped boundary or commuting-projector Hamiltonian, most notably chiral topological phases in 2+1 dimensions. In this paper, we present a more general fixed-point ansatz not affected by the aforementioned restrictions. Thus, our formalism opens up a possible way forward towards a microscopic fixed-point description of chiral phases and we present several strategies that may lead to concrete examples. Furthermore, we argue that our more general ansatz constitutes a universal form of topological fixed-point models, whereas established ansatzes are universal only for fixed-points of phases, which admit topological boundaries.
While topology is a property of a quantum state itself, most existing methods for characterizing the topology of interacting phases of matter require direct knowledge of the underlying Hamiltonian. We offer an alternative by utilizing the one-particle density matrix formalism to extend the concept of the Chern, chiral, and Chern-Simons markers to include interactions. The one-particle density matrix of a free-fermion state is a projector onto the occupied bands, defining a Brillouin zone bundle of the given topological class. This is no longer the case in the interacting limit, but as long as the one-particle density matrix is gapped, its spectrum can be adiabatically flattened, connecting it to a topologically equivalent projector. The corresponding topological markers thus characterize the topology of the interacting phase. Importantly, the one-particle density matrix is defined in terms of a given state alone, making the local markers numerically favorable, and providing a valuable tool for characterizing topology of interacting systems when only the state itself is available. To demonstrate the practical use of the markers we use the chiral marker to identify the topology of midspectrum eigenstates of the Ising-Majorana chain across the transition between the ergodic and many-body localized phases. We also apply the chiral marker to random states with a known topology, and compare it with the entanglement spectrum degeneracy. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We investigate whether sequential unitary circuits can prepare two-dimensional chiral states, using a correspondence between sequentially prepared states, isometric tensor network states, and one-dimensional quantum channel circuits. We establish two no-go theorems, one for Gaussian fermion systems and one for generic interacting systems. In Gaussian fermion systems, the correspondence relates the defining features of chiral wave functions in their entanglement spectrum to the algebraic decaying correlations in the steady state of channel dynamics. We establish the no-go theorem by proving that local channel dynamics with translational invariance cannot support such correlations. As a direct implication, two-dimensional Gaussian fermion isometric tensor network states cannot support algebraically decaying correlations in all directions or represent a chiral state. In generic interacting systems, we establish a no-go theorem by showing that the state prepared by sequential circuits cannot host the tripartite entanglement of a chiral state due to the constraints from causality.