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arXiv:2501.00572 · Physical Review Letters

Intrinsic Axion Statistical Topological Insulator

Xi Chen, Fa-Jie Wang, Zhen Bi, Zhida Song

Published Jun 4, 2025• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Ensembles that respect symmetries on average exhibit richer topological states than those in pure states with exact symmetries, leading to the concept of average symmetry-protected topological states (ASPTs). The free-fermion counterpart of ASPT is the so-called statistical topological insulator (STI) in disordered ensembles. In this Letter, we demonstrate the existence of an intrinsic STI, which has no clean counterpart. Using a real space construction (topological crystal), we find an axion STI characterized by the average axion angle θ[over ¯]=π, protected by an average C_{4}T symmetry with (C_{4}T)^{4}=1. While the exact C_{4}T symmetry reverses the sign of θ angle, and hence seems to protect a Z_{2} classification of θ=0,π, we prove that the θ=π state cannot be realized in the clean limit if (C_{4}T)^{4}=1. Therefore, the axion STI lacks band insulator correspondence and is thus intrinsic. To illustrate this state, we construct a lattice model and numerically explore its phase diagram, identifying an axion STI phase separated from both band insulators and trivial Anderson insulators by a metallic phase, revealing the intrinsic nature of the STI. We also argue that the intrinsic STI is robust against electron-electron interactions. Our Letter thus provides the first intrinsic crystalline ASPT and its lattice realization.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.134.226601

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Ensembles that respect symmetries on average exhibit richer topological states than those in pure states with exact symmetries, leading to the concept of average symmetry-protected topological states (ASPTs). The free-fermion counterpart of ASPT is the so-called statistical topological insulator (STI) in disordered ensembles. In this Letter, we demonstrate the existence of an intrinsic STI, which has no clean counterpart. Using a real space construction (topological crystal), we find an axion STI characterized by the average axion angle θ[over ¯]=π, protected by an average C_{4}T symmetry with (C_{4}T)^{4}=1. While the exact C_{4}T symmetry reverses the sign of θ angle, and hence seems to protect a Z_{2} classification of θ=0,π, we prove that the θ=π state cannot be realized in the clean limit if (C_{4}T)^{4}=1. Therefore, the axion STI lacks band insulator correspondence and is thus intrinsic. To illustrate this state, we construct a lattice model and numerically explore its phase diagram, identifying an axion STI phase separated from both band insulators and trivial Anderson insulators by a metallic phase, revealing the intrinsic nature of the STI. We also argue that the intrinsic STI is robust against electron-electron interactions. Our Letter thus provides the first intrinsic crystalline ASPT and its lattice realization.
We investigate a novel class of topological superconducting phases protected by exact fermion-parity symmetry and average crystalline symmetries. These phases belong to the broader class of average crystalline symmetry-protected topological (ACSPT) states and include numerous examples of intrinsic ACSPTs -- topological phases that arise only in the presence of disorder or decoherence. Unlike conventional symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases, which require exact symmetry protection, average SPT (ASPT) phases remain robust as long as the symmetry is restored on average across disorder realizations or mixed-state ensembles. To classify these phases, we extend the real-space block state construction framework to account for average crystalline symmetries. In this generalized setting, lower-dimensional cells are decorated with ASPT phases, and the obstruction-free conditions are reformulated to incorporate the constraints imposed by average symmetry at block intersections. This provides a physically transparent and systematic method for classifying ASPTs with spatial symmetries that are only preserved statistically. We further validate our classification using a generalized spectral sequence analysis, which serves as an independent consistency check. Our results demonstrate that many crystalline topological superconductors remain well defined under realistic imperfections, and they uncover a rich landscape of intrinsically average-symmetry-protected phases that have no analog in clean systems.
Global symmetries greatly enrich the landscape of topological quantum phases, playing an essential role from topological insulators to fractional quantum Hall effect. Topological phases in mixed quantum states, originating from decoherence in open quantum systems or disorders in imperfect crystalline solids, have recently garnered significant interest. Unlike pure states, mixed quantum states can exhibit average symmetries—symmetries that keep the total ensemble invariant but not on each individual state. In this work, we present a systematic classification and characterization of average symmetry-protected topological (ASPT) phases applicable to generic symmetry groups, encompassing both average and exact symmetries, for bosonic and fermionic systems. Moreover, we formulate the theory of average symmetry-enriched topological (ASET) orders in disordered bosonic systems. Our systematic approach helps clarify nuanced issues in previous literature and uncovers compelling new physics. Notably, we discover that (1) the definition and classification of ASPT phases in decohered and disordered systems exhibit subtle differences, (2) despite these differences, ASPT phases in both settings can be classified and characterized under a unified framework of defect decoration and spectral sequence, (3) this systematic classification uncovers a plethora of ASPT phases that are intrinsically mixed, implying they can exclusively manifest in decohered or disordered systems where part of the symmetry is average, and (4) similarly for ASET, we find intrinsically disordered phases exhibiting exotic anyon behaviors—the ground states of such phases necessarily contain localized anyons, with gapless (yet still localized) excitation blue spectra.
The axion insulator is a higher-order topological insulator protected by inversion symmetry. We show that, under quenched disorder respecting inversion symmetry on average, the topology of the axion insulator stays robust, and an intermediate metallic phase in which states are delocalized is unavoidable at the transition from an axion insulator to a trivial insulator. We derive this conclusion from general arguments, from classical percolation theory, and from the numerical study of a 3D quantum network model simulating a disordered axion insulator through a layer construction. We find the localization length critical exponent near the delocalization transition to be ν=1.42±0.12. We further show that this delocalization transition is stable even to weak breaking of the average inversion symmetry, up to a critical strength. We also quantitatively map our quantum network model to an effective Hamiltonian and we find its low-energy k·p expansion.
The natural existence of crystalline symmetry in real materials manifests the importance of understanding crystalline symmetry-protected topological phases, especially for interacting systems. In this paper, we systematically construct and classify all the point-group crystalline topological superconductors and insulators in three-dimensional (3D) interacting fermion systems using the novel concept of a topological crystal. The corresponding higher-order topological surface theory can also be systematically studied via higher-order bulk-boundary correspondence. In particular, we discover several intrinsically interacting topological phases that cannot be realized in any free-fermion systems. Moreover, the crystalline equivalence principle for 3D interacting fermionic systems is also verified, with an additional subtle “twist” on the spin of fermions.
The classification and construction of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases have been intensively studied in interacting systems recently. To our surprise, in interacting fermion systems, there exists a new class of the so-called anomalous SPT (ASPT) states which are only well defined on the boundary of a trivial fermionic bulk system. We first demonstrate the essential idea by considering an anomalous topological superconductor with time-reversal symmetry T^{2}=1 in 2D. The physical reason for this is that the fermion parity might be changed locally by certain symmetry action, but it is conserved if we introduce a bulk. Then we discuss the layer structure and systematical construction of ASPT states in interacting fermion systems in 2D with a total symmetry G_{f}=G_{b}×Z_{2}^{f}. Finally, potential experimental realizations of ASPT states are also addressed.
The imposition of crystalline symmetries is known to lead to a rich variety of insulating and superconducting topological phases. These include higher-order topological phases and obstructed atomic limits with and without filling anomalies. We here comprehensively classify such topological crystalline phases (TCPs) with mirror, twofold rotation, and inversion symmetries in the presence of disorder that preserves the crystalline symmetry on average. We find that the inclusion of disorder leads to a simplification of the classification in comparison to the clean case. We also find that, while clean TCPs evade a general bulk-boundary principle, disordered TCPs admit a complete bulk-boundary correspondence, according to which (bulk) topological phases are topologically equivalent if and only if they have the same anomalous boundary states and filling anomaly. We corroborate the stability of disordered TCPs by way of field-theoretic, numerical, and symmetry-based analyses in various case studies. While the boundary signatures of most disordered TCPs are similar to their clean counterparts, the addition of disorder to certain mirror-symmetric TCPs results in novel higher-order statistical topological phases, in which zero-energy hinge states have critical wave-function statistics, while remaining protected from Anderson localization.