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Symmetry protected topological orders and the cohomology class of their symmetry group

Xie Chen, Zheng‐Cheng Gu, Zheng-Xin Liu, Xiao-Gang Wen

Published Jun 23, 2011• 13 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry G. They can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. The Haldane phase of spin-1 chain is the first example of SPT phase which is protected by SO(3) spin rotation symmetry. The topological insulator is another exam- ple of SPT phase which is protected by U(1) and time reversal symmetries. It has been shown that free fermion SPT phases can be systematically described by the K-theory. In this paper, we show that interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory: distinct d-dimensional bosonic SPT phases with on-site symmetry G (which may contain anti-unitary time reversal symmetry) can be labeled by the elements in H^{1+d}[G, U_T(1)] - the Borel (1 + d)-group-cohomology classes of G over the G-module U_T(1). The boundary excitations of the non-trivial SPT phases are gapless or degenerate. Even more generally, we find that the different bosonic symmetry breaking short-range-entangled phases are labeled by the following three mathematical objects: (G_H, G_{\Psi}, H^{1+d}[G_{\Psi}, U_T(1)], where G_H is the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian and G_{\Psi} the symmetry group of the ground states.

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Symmetry protected topological orders and the group cohomology of their symmetry group

Xie Chen, Zheng‐Cheng Gu, Zheng-Xin Liu +1 more

Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry $G$. They can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. The Haldane phase of spin-1 chain is the first example of SPT phases which is protected by $\mathit{SO}(3)$ spin rotation symmetry. The topological insulator is another example of SPT phases which are protected by $U(1)$ and time-reversal symmetries. In this paper, we show that interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory: Distinct $d$-dimensional bosonic SPT phases with on-site symmetry $G$ (which may contain antiunitary time-reversal symmetry) can be labeled by the elements in ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[G,{U}_{T}(1)]$, the Borel $(1+d)$-group-cohomology classes of $G$ over the $G$ module ${U}_{T}(1)$. Our theory, which leads to explicit ground-state wave functions and commuting projector Hamiltonians, is based on a new type of topological term that generalizes the topological $\ensuremath{\theta}$ term in continuous nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models to lattice nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models. The boundary excitations of the nontrivial SPT phases are described by lattice nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models with a nonlocal Lagrangian term that generalizes the Wess-Zumino-Witten term for continuous nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models. As a result, the symmetry $G$ must be realized as a non-on-site symmetry for the low-energy boundary excitations, and those boundary states must be gapless or degenerate. As an application of our result, we can use ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[U(1)\ensuremath{\rtimes}{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]$ to obtain interacting bosonic topological insulators (protected by time reversal ${Z}_{2}^{T}$ and boson number conservation), which contain one nontrivial phase in one-dimensional (1D) or 2D and three in 3D. We also obtain interacting bosonic topological superconductors (protected by time-reversal symmetry only), in term of ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]$, which contain one nontrivial phase in odd spatial dimensions and none for even dimensions. Our result is much more general than the above two examples, since it is for any symmetry group. For example, we can use ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]$ to construct the SPT phases of integer spin systems with time-reversal and $U(1)$ spin rotation symmetry, which contain three nontrivial SPT phases in 1D, none in 2D, and seven in 3D. Even more generally, we find that the different bosonic symmetry breaking short-range-entangled phases are labeled by the following three mathematical objects: $({G}_{H},{G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}},{\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[{G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}},{U}_{T}(1)])$, where ${G}_{H}$ is the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian and ${G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$ the symmetry group of the ground states.

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Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry $G$, which can all be smoothly connected to the trivial product states if we break the symmetry. It has been shown that a large class of interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory. In this paper, we introduce a (special) group supercohomology theory which is a generalization of the standard group cohomology theory. We show that a large class of short-range interacting fermionic SPT phases can be described by the group supercohomology theory. Using the data of supercocycles, we can obtain the ideal ground state wave function for the corresponding fermionic SPT phase. We can also obtain the bulk Hamiltonian that realizes the SPT phase, as well as the anomalous (i.e., non-onsite) symmetry for the boundary effective Hamiltonian. The anomalous symmetry on the boundary implies that the symmetric boundary must be gapless for (1+1)-dimensional [(1+1)D] boundary, and must be gapless or topologically ordered beyond (1+1)D. As an application of this general result, we construct a new SPT phase in three dimensions, for interacting fermionic superconductors with coplanar spin order (which have ${T}^{2}=1$ time-reversal ${Z}_{2}^{T}$ and fermion-number-parity ${Z}_{2}^{f}$ symmetries described by a full symmetry group ${Z}_{2}^{T}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{f}$). Such a fermionic SPT state can neither be realized by free fermions nor by interacting bosons (formed by fermion pairs), and thus are not included in the $K$-theory classification for free fermions or group cohomology description for interacting bosons. We also construct three interacting fermionic SPT phases in two dimensions (2D) with a full symmetry group ${Z}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{f}$. Those 2D fermionic SPT phases all have central-charge $c=1$ gapless edge excitations, if the symmetry is not broken.

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Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped quantum phases with a certain symmetry, which can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. For noninteracting fermion systems with time reversal ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}$), charge conjugation ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{C}$), and/or $U(1)$ ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$) symmetries, the total symmetry group can depend on the relations between those symmetry operations, such as $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}=\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$ or $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}=\ensuremath{-}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$. As a result, the SPT phases of those fermion systems with different symmetry groups have different classifications. In this paper, we use Kitaev's K-theory approach to classify the gapped free-fermion phases for those possible symmetry groups. In particular, we can view the $U(1)$ as a spin rotation. We find that superconductors with the ${S}_{z}$ spin-rotation symmetry are classified by $Z$ in even dimensions, while superconductors with the time reversal plus the ${S}_{z}$ spin-rotation symmetries are classified by $Z$ in odd dimensions. We show that all 10 classes of gapped free-fermion phases can be realized by electron systems with certain symmetries. We also point out that, to properly describe the symmetry of a fermionic system, we need to specify its full symmetry group that includes the fermion number parity transformation ${(\ensuremath{-})}^{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}}$. The full symmetry group is actually a projective symmetry group.

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Bosonic symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are bosonic analogs of free-fermion topological insulators and superconductors, but require interactions to be realized. Previously, a wide range of bosonic SPT phases protected by on-site symmetries has been systematically investigated, which are found to be related to group cohomology theory. However, a systematic understanding of SPT phases protected by spatial symmetries is still lacking. Here, the authors present systematic constructions of tensor-network wave functions for bosonic SPT phases protected by a general symmetry group SG involving both on-site and spatial symmetries. They find, in spatial dimension $d=1,2,3$, that a wide range of bosonic SPT phases are classified by the group cohomology ${H}^{d+1}$SG,U(1), in which the time-reversal symmetry and mirror symmetries should be treated as anti-unitary operations. They also provide generic tensor-network wave functions for these SPT phases that are useful for numerical simulations. As a by-product, the authors demonstrate a generic connection between rather conventional symmetry-enriched topological phases and SPT phases via an anyon condensation mechanism.

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Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry G. They can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. The Haldane phase of spin-1 chain is the first example of SPT phase which is protected by SO(3) spin rotation symmetry. The topological insulator is another exam- ple of SPT phase which is protected by U(1) and time reversal symmetries. It has been shown that free fermion SPT phases can be systematically described by the K-theory. In this paper, we show that interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory: distinct d-dimensional bosonic SPT phases with on-site symmetry G (which may contain anti-unitary time reversal symmetry) can be labeled by the elements in H^{1+d}[G, U_T(1)] - the Borel (1 + d)-group-cohomology classes of G over the G-module U_T(1). The boundary excitations of the non-trivial SPT phases are gapless or degenerate. Even more generally, we find that the different bosonic symmetry breaking short-range-entangled phases are labeled by the following three mathematical objects: (G_H, G_{\Psi}, H^{1+d}[G_{\Psi}, U_T(1)], where G_H is the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian and G_{\Psi} the symmetry group of the ground states.
Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry GGG. They can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. The Haldane phase of spin-1 chain is the first example of SPT phases which is protected by SO(3)\mathit{SO}(3)SO(3) spin rotation symmetry. The topological insulator is another example of SPT phases which are protected by U(1)U(1)U(1) and time-reversal symmetries. In this paper, we show that interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory: Distinct ddd-dimensional bosonic SPT phases with on-site symmetry GGG (which may contain antiunitary time-reversal symmetry) can be labeled by the elements in H1+d[G,UT(1)]{\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[G,{U}_{T}(1)]H1+d[G,UT​(1)], the Borel (1+d)(1+d)(1+d)-group-cohomology classes of GGG over the GGG module UT(1){U}_{T}(1)UT​(1). Our theory, which leads to explicit ground-state wave functions and commuting projector Hamiltonians, is based on a new type of topological term that generalizes the topological $\ensuremath{\theta}$ term in continuous nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models to lattice nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models. The boundary excitations of the nontrivial SPT phases are described by lattice nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models with a nonlocal Lagrangian term that generalizes the Wess-Zumino-Witten term for continuous nonlinear $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ models. As a result, the symmetry GGG must be realized as a non-on-site symmetry for the low-energy boundary excitations, and those boundary states must be gapless or degenerate. As an application of our result, we can use ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[U(1)\ensuremath{\rtimes}{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]$ to obtain interacting bosonic topological insulators (protected by time reversal Z2T{Z}_{2}^{T}Z2T​ and boson number conservation), which contain one nontrivial phase in one-dimensional (1D) or 2D and three in 3D. We also obtain interacting bosonic topological superconductors (protected by time-reversal symmetry only), in term of H1+d[Z2T,UT(1)]{\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]H1+d[Z2T​,UT​(1)], which contain one nontrivial phase in odd spatial dimensions and none for even dimensions. Our result is much more general than the above two examples, since it is for any symmetry group. For example, we can use ${\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{T},{U}_{T}(1)]$ to construct the SPT phases of integer spin systems with time-reversal and U(1)U(1)U(1) spin rotation symmetry, which contain three nontrivial SPT phases in 1D, none in 2D, and seven in 3D. Even more generally, we find that the different bosonic symmetry breaking short-range-entangled phases are labeled by the following three mathematical objects: $({G}_{H},{G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}},{\mathcal{H}}^{1+d}[{G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}},{U}_{T}(1)])$, where GH{G}_{H}GH​ is the symmetry group of the Hamiltonian and ${G}_{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$ the symmetry group of the ground states.
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry GGG, which can all be smoothly connected to the trivial product states if we break the symmetry. It has been shown that a large class of interacting bosonic SPT phases can be systematically described by group cohomology theory. In this paper, we introduce a (special) group supercohomology theory which is a generalization of the standard group cohomology theory. We show that a large class of short-range interacting fermionic SPT phases can be described by the group supercohomology theory. Using the data of supercocycles, we can obtain the ideal ground state wave function for the corresponding fermionic SPT phase. We can also obtain the bulk Hamiltonian that realizes the SPT phase, as well as the anomalous (i.e., non-onsite) symmetry for the boundary effective Hamiltonian. The anomalous symmetry on the boundary implies that the symmetric boundary must be gapless for (1+1)-dimensional [(1+1)D] boundary, and must be gapless or topologically ordered beyond (1+1)D. As an application of this general result, we construct a new SPT phase in three dimensions, for interacting fermionic superconductors with coplanar spin order (which have T2=1{T}^{2}=1T2=1 time-reversal Z2T{Z}_{2}^{T}Z2T​ and fermion-number-parity Z2f{Z}_{2}^{f}Z2f​ symmetries described by a full symmetry group ${Z}_{2}^{T}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{f}$). Such a fermionic SPT state can neither be realized by free fermions nor by interacting bosons (formed by fermion pairs), and thus are not included in the KKK-theory classification for free fermions or group cohomology description for interacting bosons. We also construct three interacting fermionic SPT phases in two dimensions (2D) with a full symmetry group ${Z}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}^{f}$. Those 2D fermionic SPT phases all have central-charge c=1c=1c=1 gapless edge excitations, if the symmetry is not broken.
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are bulk-gapped quantum phases with symmetries, which have gapless or degenerate boundary states as long as the symmetries are not broken. The SPT phases in free fermion systems, such as topological insulators, can be classified; however, it is not known what SPT phases exist in general interacting systems. We present a systematic way to construct SPT phases in interacting bosonic systems. Just as group theory allows us to construct 230 crystal structures in three-dimensional space, we use group cohomology theory to systematically construct different interacting bosonic SPT phases in any dimension and with any symmetry, leading to the discovery of bosonic topological insulators and superconductors.
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped quantum phases with a certain symmetry, which can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. For noninteracting fermion systems with time reversal ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}$), charge conjugation ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{C}$), and/or U(1)U(1)U(1) ($\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$) symmetries, the total symmetry group can depend on the relations between those symmetry operations, such as $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}=\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$ or $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{T}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}=\ensuremath{-}\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}$. As a result, the SPT phases of those fermion systems with different symmetry groups have different classifications. In this paper, we use Kitaev's K-theory approach to classify the gapped free-fermion phases for those possible symmetry groups. In particular, we can view the U(1)U(1)U(1) as a spin rotation. We find that superconductors with the Sz{S}_{z}Sz​ spin-rotation symmetry are classified by ZZZ in even dimensions, while superconductors with the time reversal plus the Sz{S}_{z}Sz​ spin-rotation symmetries are classified by ZZZ in odd dimensions. We show that all 10 classes of gapped free-fermion phases can be realized by electron systems with certain symmetries. We also point out that, to properly describe the symmetry of a fermionic system, we need to specify its full symmetry group that includes the fermion number parity transformation ${(\ensuremath{-})}^{\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{N}}$. The full symmetry group is actually a projective symmetry group.
Recently, it was realized that quantum states of matter can be classified as long-range entangled states (i.e., with nontrivial topological order) and short-range entangled states (i.e., with trivial topological order). We can use group cohomology class Hd(SG,R/Z){\mathcal{H}}^{d}(SG,\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})Hd(SG,R/Z) to systematically describe the SRE states with a symmetry SGSGSG [referred as symmetry-protected trivial (SPT) or symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states] in ddd-dimensional space-time. In this paper, we study the physical properties of those SPT states, such as the fractionalization of the quantum numbers of the global symmetry on some designed point defects and the appearance of fractionalized SPT states on some designed defect lines/membranes. Those physical properties are SPT invariants of the SPT states which allow us to experimentally or numerically detect those SPT states, i.e., to measure the elements in Hd(G,R/Z){\mathcal{H}}^{d}(G,\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})Hd(G,R/Z) that label different SPT states. For example, 2+12+12+1-dimensional bosonic SPT states with Zn{Z}_{n}Zn​ symmetry are classified by a Zn{\mathbb{Z}}_{n}Zn​ integer $m\ensuremath{\in}{\mathcal{H}}^{3}({Z}_{n},\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})={\mathbb{Z}}_{n}$. We find that nnn identical monodromy defects, in a Zn{Z}_{n}Zn​ SPT state labeled by mmm, carry a total Zn{Z}_{n}Zn​ charge 2m2m2m (which is not a multiple of nnn in general).
Bosonic symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are bosonic analogs of free-fermion topological insulators and superconductors, but require interactions to be realized. Previously, a wide range of bosonic SPT phases protected by on-site symmetries has been systematically investigated, which are found to be related to group cohomology theory. However, a systematic understanding of SPT phases protected by spatial symmetries is still lacking. Here, the authors present systematic constructions of tensor-network wave functions for bosonic SPT phases protected by a general symmetry group SG involving both on-site and spatial symmetries. They find, in spatial dimension d=1,2,3d=1,2,3d=1,2,3, that a wide range of bosonic SPT phases are classified by the group cohomology Hd+1{H}^{d+1}Hd+1SG,U(1), in which the time-reversal symmetry and mirror symmetries should be treated as anti-unitary operations. They also provide generic tensor-network wave functions for these SPT phases that are useful for numerical simulations. As a by-product, the authors demonstrate a generic connection between rather conventional symmetry-enriched topological phases and SPT phases via an anyon condensation mechanism.