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arXiv:cond-mat/0508508 · Physical Review B

Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem for quasitopological systems

Michael Hartley Freedman, Chetan Nayak, Kirill Shtengel

Published Nov 11, 2008• 14 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this paper we address the question of the existence of a spectral gap in a class of local Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians have the following properties: their ground states are known exactly; all equal-time correlation functions of local operators are short-ranged; and correlation functions of certain nonlocal operators are critical. A variational argument shows gaplessness with $\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\propto}{k}^{2}$ at critical points defined by the absence of certain terms in the Hamiltonian, which is remarkable because equal-time correlation functions of local operators remain short ranged. We call such critical points, in which spatial and temporal scaling are radically different, quasitopological. When these terms are present in the Hamiltonian, the models are in gapped topological phases which are of special interest in the context of topological quantum computation.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.78.174411

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In this paper we address the question of the existence of a spectral gap in a class of local Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians have the following properties: their ground states are known exactly; all equal-time correlation functions of local operators are short-ranged; and correlation functions of certain nonlocal operators are critical. A variational argument shows gaplessness with \ensuremathω\ensuremath∝k2\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\propto}{k}^{2}\ensuremathω\ensuremath∝k2 at critical points defined by the absence of certain terms in the Hamiltonian, which is remarkable because equal-time correlation functions of local operators remain short ranged. We call such critical points, in which spatial and temporal scaling are radically different, quasitopological. When these terms are present in the Hamiltonian, the models are in gapped topological phases which are of special interest in the context of topological quantum computation.
We review the Lieb–Schultz–Mattis theorem and its variants, which are no-go theorems that state that a quantum many-body system with certain conditions cannot have a locally-unique gapped ground state. We restrict ourselves to one-dimensional quantum spin systems and discuss both the generalized Lieb–Schultz–Mattis theorem for models with U(1) symmetry and the extended Lieb–Schultz–Mattis theorem for models with discrete symmetry. We also discuss the implication of the same arguments to systems on the infinite cylinder, both with the periodic boundary conditions and with the spiral boundary conditions. For models with U(1) symmetry, we here present a rearranged version of the original proof of Lieb, Schultz, and Mattis based on the twist operator. As the title suggests, we take a modern topological point of view and prove the generalized Lieb–Schultz–Mattis theorem by making use of a topological index (which coincides with the filling factor). By a topological index, we mean an index that characterizes a locally-unique gapped ground state and is invariant under continuous (or smooth) modification of the ground state. For models with discrete symmetry, we describe the basic idea of the most general proof based on the topological index introduced in the context of symmetry-protected topological phases. We start from background materials such as the classification of projective representations of the symmetry group. We also review the notion that we call a locally-unique gapped ground state of a quantum spin system on an infinite lattice and present basic theorems. This notion turns out to be natural and useful from the physicists’ point of view. We have tried to make the present chapter readable and almost self-contained. We only assume basic knowledge about quantum spin systems.
A generalization of the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem to higher-dimensional spin systems is shown. The physical motivation for the result is that such spin systems typically either have long-range order, in which case there are gapless modes, or have only short-range correlations, in which case there are topological excitations. The result uses a set of loop operators, analogous to those used in gauge theories, defined in terms of the spin operators of the theory. We also obtain various cluster bounds on expectation values for gapped systems. These bounds are used, under the assumption of a gap, to rule out the first case of long-range order, after which we show the existence of a topological excitation. Compared to the ground state, the topologically excited state has, up to a small error, the same expectation values for all operators acting within any local region, but it has a different momentum.
We consider many-body quantum systems on a finite lattice, where the Hilbert space is the tensor product of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces associated with each site, and where the Hamiltonian of the system is a sum of local terms. We are interested in proving uniform bounds on various properties as the size of the lattice tends to infinity. An important case is when there is a spectral gap between the lowest state(s) and the rest of the spectrum which persists in this limit, corresponding to what physicists call a “phase of matter.” Here, the combination of elementary Fourier analysis with the technique of Lieb–Robinson bounds (bounds on the velocity of propagation) is surprisingly powerful. We use this to prove exponential decay of connected correlation functions, a higher-dimensional Lieb–Schultz–Mattis theorem, and a Hall conductance quantization theorem for interacting electrons with disorder.
We investigate the extension of pure-state symmetry protected topological phases to mixed-state regime with a strong U(1) and a weak Z2\mathbb{Z}_2Z2​ symmetries in one-dimensional spin systems by the concept of quantum channels. We propose a corresponding topological phase order parameter for short-range entangled mixed states by showing that it is quantized and its distinct values can be realized by concrete spin systems with disorders, sharply signaling phase transitions among them. We also give a model-independent way to generate two distinct phases by various types of translation and reflection transformations. These results on the short-range entangled mixed states further enable us to generalize the conventional Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem to mixed states, even without the concept of spectral gaps and lattice Hamiltonians.
We ask whether a local Hamiltonian with a featureless (fully gapped and nondegenerate) ground state could exist in certain quantum spin systems. We address this question by mapping the vicinity of certain quantum critical point (or gapless phase) of the ddd-dimensional spin system under study to the boundary of a (d+1)(d+1)(d+1)-dimensional bulk state, and the lattice symmetry of the spin system acts as an onsite symmetry in the field theory that describes both the selected critical point of the spin system and the corresponding boundary state of the (d+1)(d+1)(d+1)-dimensional bulk. If the symmetry action of the field theory is nonanomalous, i.e., the corresponding bulk state is a trivial state instead of a bosonic symmetry-protected topological (SPT) state, then a featureless ground state of the spin system is allowed; if the corresponding bulk state is indeed a nontrivial SPT state, then it likely excludes the existence of a featureless ground state of the spin system. From this perspective, we identify the spin systems with SU(N\mathrm{SU}(NSU(N) and SO(N\mathrm{SO}(NSO(N) symmetries on one-, two-, and three-dimensional lattices that permit a featureless ground state. We also verify our conclusions by other methods, including an explicit construction of these featureless spin states.
The Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem states that a finite-range Hamiltonian in translationally and spin-rotationally invariant spin-1/2 systems cannot have a unique gapped ground state. Here, the author extends the theorem to include Hamiltonians with terms that act on a finite number of sites, but which may be far apart, provided that the interaction strength decays with distance faster than a certain power law. As the spatial dimension increases, the power law required to guarantee the result demands faster decay.