Effective Field Theories for Topological States of Matter

Chunbo Zhao

We give a self-contained and enriched review about topology properties in the rapidly growing field of topological states of matter (TSM). This review is mainly focus on the beautiful interplay of topology mathematics and condensed matter physics that issuing TSM. Fiber bundle theory is a powerful concept to describe the non-trivial topology properties underlying the physical system. So we briefly present some motivation of fiber bundle theory and following that several effective topological methods have been introduced to judge whether a fiber bundle is trivial or not. Next, we give some topological invariants that characterizes the non-trivial TSM in the non-interacting systems in all dimensions, which is called topological band theory. Following that, we review and generalize the topological response using topological field theory called Chern-Simons effective theory. Finally, the classification of free-fermion systems have been studied by loop space and K-theory.

Thomas Klein Kvorning

Shoucheng Zhang

Topological field theory (TFT) describes universal low-energy properties of topological states of quantum matter. It also predicts exact quantization effects that can be experimentally measured. Recently, TFT has directly led to the theoretical prediction of topological materials. In this paper, I shall briefly review these recent developments.

Pak On Chan, Taylor L. Hughes, Shinsei Ryu +1 more

Jackson R. Fliss

The low energy effective field theories of (2 + 1) dimensional topological phases of matter provide powerful avenues for investigating entanglement in their ground states. In [1] the entanglement between distinct Abelian topological phases was investigated through Abelian Chern-Simons theories equipped with a set of topological boundary conditions (TBCs). In the present paper we extend the notion of a TBC to non-Abelian Chern-Simons theories, providing an effective description for a class of gapped interfaces across non-Abelian topological phases. These boundary conditions furnish a defining relation for the extended Hilbert space of the quantum theory and allow the calculation of entanglement directly in the gauge theory. Because we allow for trivial interfaces, this includes a generic construction of the extended Hilbert space in any (compact) Chern-Simons theory quantized on a Riemann surface. Additionally, this provides a constructive and principled definition for the Hilbert space of effective ground states of gapped phases of matter glued along gapped interfaces. Lastly, we describe a generalized notion of surgery, adding a powerful tool from topological field theory to the gapped interface toolbox.