In this work, we study the connection between two subjects: the space of conformal boundary conditions in boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) and the space of gapped systems characterized by higher Berry phases. We explore this connection by analyzing multi-parameter spectral flow in Dirac fermion BCFTs with continuously parametrized conformal boundary conditions, which are introduced by coupling a CFT to a family of gapped systems. When the gapped systems belong to a nontrivial higher Berry class, the associated conformal boundary conditions induce a flow of the ordinary Berry curvature, resulting in a Chern number pump in the Fock space of the BCFT. This phenomenon is the BCFT analog of Berry curvature flow in one-dimensional parametrized gapped systems, where the flow occurs in real space. Building on this correspondence, we introduce the notions of higher Berry curvature and higher Berry invariants within the BCFT framework. Our results provide a new perspective for studying the topological properties of families of conformal boundary states and gapped ground states: if a family of gapped states belongs to a nontrivial higher Berry class, then the corresponding entanglement Hamiltonians exhibit a multi-parameter spectral flow that carries Berry curvature in the Fock space.
We present a theory unifying the topological responses and anomalies of various gapless fermion systems exhibiting Fermi surfaces, including those with Berry phases, and nodal structures, which applies beyond the noninteracting limit. As our key finding, we obtain a general approach to directly relate gapless fermions and topological insulators in phase space, including first- and higher-order insulators. Using this relation we show that the low-energy properties and response theories for gapless fermionic systems can be directly obtained without resorting to microscopic details. Our results provide a unified framework for describing such systems using well-developed theories from the study of topological phases of matter.
One-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks show a rich spectrum of topological phases that have so far been exclusively analyzed using the Floquet operator in momentum space. In this work, we introduce an alternative approach to topology which is based on the scattering matrix of a quantum walk, adapting concepts from time-independent systems. For quantum walks with gaps in the quasienergy spectrum at 0 and $\ensuremath{\pi}$, we find three different types of topological invariants, which apply dependent on the symmetries of the system. These determine the number of protected boundary states at an interface between two quantum-walk regions. Quantum walks with an unequal number of leftward and rightward shifts per cycle are characterized by the number of perfectly transmitting unidirectional modes they support, which is equal to their nontrivial quasienergy winding. Our classification provides a unified framework that includes all known types of topology in one-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks and is very well suited for the analysis of finite-size and disorder effects. We provide a simple scheme to directly measure the topological invariants in an optical quantum-walk experiment.
A family of finite-dimensional quantum systems with a nondegenerate ground state gives rise to a closed two-form on the parameter space, the curvature of the Berry connection. Its integral over a surface detects the presence of degeneracy points inside the volume enclosed by the surface. We seek generalizations of the Berry curvature to gapped many-body systems in
D spatial dimensions which can detect gapless or degenerate points in the phase diagram of a system. Field theory predicts that in spatial dimension
D the analog of the Berry curvature is a closed
(D+2)-form on the parameter space (the Wess-Zumino-Witten form). We construct such closed forms for arbitrary families of gapped interacting lattice systems in all dimensions. We show that whenever the integral of the Wess-Zumino-Witten form over a
(D+2)-dimensional surface in the parameter space is nonzero, there must be gapless edge modes for at least one value of the parameters. These edge modes arise even when the bulk system is in a trivial phase for all values of the parameters and are protected by the nontrivial topology of the phase diagram.
In one spatial dimension, families of short-range entangled many-body quantum states, parameterized over some parameter space, can be topologically distinguished and classified by topological invariants built from the higher Berry phase---a many-body generalization of the Berry phase. Previous works identified the underlying mathematical structure (the gerbe structure) and introduced a multi-wave-function overlap, a generalization of the inner product in quantum mechanics, which allows for the extraction of the higher Berry phase and topological invariants. In this paper, building on these works, we introduce a connection, the higher Berry connection, for a family of parameterized matrix product states (MPS) over a parameter space. We demonstrate the use of our formula for simple nontrivial models.
This paper is concerned with the physics of parametrized gapped quantum many-body systems, which can be viewed as a generalization of conventional topological phases of matter. In such systems, rather than considering a single Hamiltonian, one considers a family of Hamiltonians that depend continuously on some parameters. After discussing the notion of phases of parametrized systems, we formulate a bulk-boundary correspondence for an important bulk quantity, the Kapustin-Spodyneiko higher Berry curvature, first in one spatial dimension and then in arbitrary dimension. This clarifies the physical interpretation of the higher Berry curvature, which in one spatial dimension is a flow of (ordinary) Berry curvature. In
d dimensions, the higher Berry curvature is a flow of $(d\ensuremath{-}1)$-dimensional higher Berry curvature. Based on this, we discuss one-dimensional systems that pump Chern number to/from spatial boundaries, resulting in anomalous boundary modes featuring isolated Weyl points. In higher dimensions, there are pumps of the analogous quantized invariants obtained by integrating the higher Berry curvature. We also discuss the consequences for parametrized systems of Kitaev's proposal that invertible phases are classified by a generalized cohomology theory, and emphasize the role of the suspension isomorphism in generating new examples of parametrized systems from known invertible phases. Finally, we present a pair of general quantum pumping constructions, based on physical pictures introduced by Kitaev, which take as input a
d-dimensional parametrized system, and produce new
(d+1)-dimensional parametrized systems. These constructions are useful for generating examples, and we conjecture that one of the constructions realizes the suspension isomorphism in a generalized cohomology theory of invertible phases.