arXiv:2610.42103
Charge Pumping Leptogenesis from the Symmetric Mass Generation Phase on a Four-Leg Ladder Lattice
Runze Chi, Meng Zeng, Tao Xiang, Yi-Zhuang You, Bertrand I. Halperin, Juven Wang
Abstract
Quantized charge pumping in quantum Hall systems is a bulk topological property, typically manifesting on gapless boundaries as spectral flow through chiral edge modes upon flux insertion. When the boundary is anomaly-free, it can be symmetrically gapped by symmetric mass generation (SMG) interactions. However, the effects on quantized charge pumping at an interacting gapped boundary are unclear. We address this using density-matrix renormalization group simulations of a four-leg ladder quasi-(2+1)d realization of the (1+1)d 3-4-5-0 lattice chiral fermion model with six-fermion interactions at one edge. We find gapless modes near the interacting edge for both weak and strong couplings, but the edge can be in a fully gapped SMG phase at intermediate coupling. We also identify spontaneous breaking of the model's $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry above a critical interaction strength. Across all three boundary phases, we find quantized charge pumping with the same pumped charge per flux quantum. The spatial distribution of the pumped charge varies between phases. Besides charge pumping, we study how a single injected fermion propagates under open boundary conditions. In the SMG phase, an interaction-induced flavor-mixing current develops at the endpoints of the gapped edge, which is absent in the weak- and strong-coupling limits. This current reveals a charge-redistribution mechanism unique to the SMG phase. Additionally, we propose an analogy between charge pumping in this model and a topological leptogenesis scenario in the (3+1)d Standard Model. The anomaly-free chiral U(1) symmetries of the 3-4-5-0 model play a role analogous to the baryon-minus-lepton symmetry of the Standard Model. In both settings, charge pumping can be associated with a continuous deformation along a classically defined but quantum-anomalous direction, while a discrete subgroup remains an exact quantum symmetry.
AI Summary
The paper asks how quantized charge pumping behaves when an anomaly-free chiral boundary is gapped by symmetric mass generation (SMG). It studies the four-flavor 3-4-5-0 lattice model, with six-fermion interactions confined to one edge of a Chern-insulator ladder, using DMRG primarily on $L_x=8$, $L_y=4$ systems, supplemented by smaller-system calculations, exact diagonalization, and strong-coupling analysis. The numerical results support an intermediate symmetric, gapped-edge regime around $g\simeq5$–$6$, between weak-coupling gapless behavior and a symmetry-broken strong-coupling regime. Channel-exchange symmetry breaking appears near $g\simeq6$. At sufficiently strong coupling, the interacting row effectively decouples and gapless modes emerge on the adjacent row. The isolated interacting edge admits a monomer–dimer reduction to a constrained PXP chain, with numerical evidence for four symmetry-related ground states. Removing a $\mathbb Z_{10}$ flux quantum along the flavor-charge direction $(2,1,-2,1)$ pumps conserved charges $(2,1)$ away from the noninteracting edge across the studied regimes, consistent with the bulk mixed Hall response. The receiving charge’s spatial distribution depends on the boundary regime. A different continuous interpolation of the same discrete twist produces zero net conserved-charge pumping. Static added-particle calculations also show enhanced endpoint flavor-conversion currents in the proposed SMG regime. The accessible sizes do not resolve the strong-side transitions or establish thermodynamic phase boundaries; finite-width hybridization remains a caveat. Real-time interface scattering is left open. A proposed Standard-Model leptogenesis connection is an anomaly-based analogy, not a demonstrated cosmological mechanism.
Central claim may not hold: The claim of quantized pumping across a fully gapped SMG boundary phase is conditional because the four-leg calculations do not conclusively establish that phase in the thermodynamic limit. The abstract describes injected-fermion propagation, but the reported calculations measure static ground-state charge and current profiles rather than propagation dynamics.
Written by gpt-6.1-sol from the paper's full text. Automated: it can be wrong.
- Comments
- 30 pages, many figures