Almost strong edge-mode operators arising at the boundaries of certain interacting 1D symmetry protected topological phases with \(Z_2\) symmetry have infinite temperature lifetimes that are non-perturbatively long in the integrability breaking terms, making them promising as bits for quantum information processing. We extract the lifetime of these edge-mode operators for small system sizes as well as in the thermodynamic limit. For the latter, a Lanczos scheme is employed to map the operator dynamics to a one dimensional tight-binding model of a single particle in Krylov space. We find this model to be that of a spatially inhomogeneous Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with a hopping amplitude that increases away from the boundary, and a dimerization that decreases away from the boundary. We associate this dimerized or staggered structure with the existence of the almost strong mode. Thus the short time dynamics of the almost strong mode is that of the edge-mode of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, while the long time dynamics involves decay due to tunneling out of that mode, followed by chaotic operator spreading. We also show that competing scattering processes can lead to interference effects that can significantly enhance the lifetime.
Symmetry protected topological (SPT) states are bulk gapped states with gapless edge excitations protected by certain symmetries. The SPT phases in free fermion systems, like topological insulators, can be classified by the K-theory. However, it is not known what SPT phases exist in general interacting systems. In this paper, we present a systematic way to construct SPT phases in interacting bosonic systems, which allows us to identify many new SPT phases, including three bosonic versions of topological insulators in three dimension and one in two dimension protected by particle number conserv…
Recently, it has been shown that two-dimensional bosonic symmetry-protected topological(SPT) phases with on-site unitary symmetry $G$ can be completely classified by the group cohomology class $H^3(G, \mathrm{U}(1))$. Later, group super-cohomology class was proposed as a partial classification for SPT phases of interacting fermions. In this work, we revisit this problem based on the mathematical framework of $G$-extension of unitary braided tensor category(UBTC) theory. We first reproduce the partial classifications given by group super-cohomology, then we show that with an additional $H^1(G, …
The classification and construction of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases have been intensively studied in interacting systems recently. To our surprise, in interacting fermion systems, there exists a new class of the so-called anomalous SPT (ASPT) states which are only well defined on the boundary of a trivial fermionic bulk system. We first demonstrate the essential idea by considering an anomalous topological superconductor with time reversal symmetry $T^2=1$ in 2D. The physical reason is that the fermion parity might be changed locally by certain symmetry action, but is conserved …
We study the classification of interacting fermionic and bosonic symmetry protected topological (SPT) states. We define a SPT state as whether or not it is separated from the trivial state through a bulk phase transition, which is a general definition applicable to SPT states with or without spatial symmetries. We show that in all dimensions short range interactions can reduce the classification of free fermion SPT states, and we demonstrate these results by making connection between fermionic and bosonic SPT states. We first demonstrate that our formalism gives the correct classification for …
Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in free fermion and interacting bosonic systems have been classified, but the physical phenomena of interacting fermionic SPT phases have not been fully explored. Here, employing large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulation, we investigate the edge physics of a bilayer Kane-Mele-Hubbard model with zigzag ribbon geometry. Our unbiased numerical results show that the fermion edge modes are gapped out by interaction, while the bosonic edge modes remain gapless at the $(1+1)d$ boundary, before the bulk quantum phase transition to a topologically trivial ph…
Motivated by the recent discovery of higher-order topological insulators, we study their counterparts in strongly interacting bosons: `higher-order symmetry protected topological (HOSPT) phases'. While the usual (1st-order) SPT phases in d spatial dimensions support anomalous (d-1)-dimensional surface states, HOSPT phases in d dimensions are characterized by topological boundary states of dimension (d-2) or smaller, protected by certain global symmetries and robust against disorders. Based on a dimensional reduction analysis, we show that HOSPT phases can be built from lower-dimensional SPT ph…
Using the decorated domain wall procedure, we construct Finite Depth Local Unitaries (FDLUs) that realize Fermionic Symmetry-Protected Topological (SPT) phases. This results in explicit 'full' commuting projector Hamiltonians, where 'full' implies the fact that the ground state, as well as all excited states of these Hamiltonians, realizes the nontrivial SPT phase. We begin by constructing explicit examples of 1+1D phases protected by symmetry groups $G=\mathbb Z_2^T \times \mathbb Z_2^F$ , which also has a free fermion realization in class BDI, and $G=\mathbb Z_4 \times \mathbb Z_4^F$, which …
The low energy behavior of a huge variety of one-dimensional interacting spinful fermionic systems exhibits spin-charge separation, described in the continuum limit by two sine-Gordon models decoupled in the charge and spin channels. Interaction is known to induce, besides the gapless Luttinger liquid phase, eight possible gapped phases, among which are the Mott, Haldane, charge-/spin-density, and bond-ordered wave insulators, and the Luther Emery liquid. Here we prove that some of these physically distinct phases have nontrivial topological properties, notably the presence of degenerate prote…
Motivated by recent progress in crystalline symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases of interacting bosons, we study topological crystalline insulators/superconductors (TCIs) of strongly interacting fermions. We construct a class of intrinsically interacting fermionic TCIs, and show that they are beyond both free-fermion TCIs and bosonic crystalline SPT phases. We also show how these phases can be characterized by symmetry protected gapless fermion modes on the corners/hinges of an open system.
Recently, it has been found that there exist symmetry-protected topological phases of fermions, which have no realizations in non-interacting fermionic systems or bosonic models. We study the edge states of such an intrinsically interacting fermionic SPT phase in two spatial dimensions, protected by $\mathbb{Z}_4\times\mathbb{Z}_2^T$ symmetry. We model the edge Hilbert space by replacing the internal $\mathbb{Z}_4$ symmetry with a spatial translation symmetry, and design an exactly solvable Hamiltonian for the edge model. We show that at low-energy the edge can be described by a two-component …
We classify and construct models for two-dimensional (2D) interacting fermionic symmetry-protected topological (FSPT) phases with general finite Abelian unitary symmetry $G_f$. To obtain the classification, we couple the FSPT system to a dynamical discrete gauge field with gauge group $G_f$ and study braiding statistics in the resulting gauge theory. Under reasonable assumptions, the braiding statistics data allows us to infer a potentially complete classification of 2D FSPT phases with Abelian symmetry. The FSPT models that we construct are simple stacks of the following two kinds of existing…
We construct fixed point lattice models for group supercohomology symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases of fermions in 2+1D. A key feature of our approach is to construct finite depth circuits of local unitaries that explicitly build the ground states from a tensor product state. We then recover the classification of fermionic SPT phases, including the group structure under stacking, from the algebraic composition rules of these circuits. Furthermore, we show that the circuits are symmetric, implying that the group supercohomology phases can be many body localized. Our strategy involves …
Higher-order topological insulators have a modified bulk-boundary correspondence compared to other topological phases: instead of gapless edge or surface states, they have gapped edges and surfaces, but protected modes at corners or hinges. Here, we explore symmetry protected topological phases in strongly interacting many-body systems with this generalized bulk-boundary correspondence. We introduce several exactly solvable bosonic lattice models as candidates for interacting higher order symmetry protected topological (HOSPT) phases protected by spatial symmetries, and develop a topological f…
Non-hermitian quantum systems can exhibit spectral degeneracies known as exceptional points, where two or more eigenvectors coalesce, leading to a non-diagonalizable Jordan block. It is known that symmetries can enhance the abundance of exceptional points in non-interacting systems. Here, we investigate the fate of such symmetry protected exceptional points in the presence of a symmetry preserving interaction between fermions and find that, (i) exceptional points are stable in the presence of the interaction. Their propagation through the parameter space leads to the formation of characteristi…
The construction and classification of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting bosonic and fermionic systems have been intensively studied in the past few years. Very recently, a complete classification and construction of space group SPT phases were also proposed for interacting bosonic systems. In this paper, we attempt to generalize this classification and construction scheme systematically into interacting fermion systems. In particular, we construct and classify point group SPT phases for 2D interacting fermion systems via lower-dimensional block-state decorations. We d…
We study a mechanism whereby quantum information present in the initial state of a quantum many-body system can be protected for arbitrary times due to a combination of symmetry and spatial locality. Remarkably, the mechanism is sufficiently generic that the dynamics can be fully ergodic upon resolving the protecting symmetry and fixing the encoded quantum state, resulting in an infinite-temperature quantum memory. After exemplifying the mechanism in a strongly nonintegrable two-dimensional (2D) spin model inspired by the surface code, we find it has a natural interpretation in the language of…
Recently, it was realized that quantum states of matter can be classified as long-range entangled (LRE) states (i.e. with non-trivial topological order) and short-range entangled (SRE) states (\ie with trivial topological order). We can use group cohomology class ${\cal H}^d(SG,R/Z)$ to systematically describe the SRE states with a symmetry $SG$ [referred as symmetry-protected trivial (SPT) or symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states] in $d$-dimensional space-time. In this paper, we study the physical properties of those SPT states, such as the fractionalization of the quantum numbers of th…
We study the effect of electron interactions in topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) protected by mirror symmetry, which are realized in the SnTe material class and host multi-valley Dirac fermion surface states. We find that interactions reduce the integer classification of noninteracting TCIs in three dimensions, indexed by the mirror Chern number, to a finite group $Z_8$. In particular, we explicitly construct a microscopic interaction Hamiltonian to gap 8 flavors of Dirac fermions on the TCI surface, while preserving the mirror symmetry. Our construction builds on interacting edge sta…
We discuss the quantum simulation of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) states for interacting fermions in quasi-one-dimensional gases of alkaline-earth-like atoms such as $^{173}$Yb. Taking advantage of the separation of orbital and nuclear-spin degrees of freedom in these atoms, we consider Raman-assisted spin-orbit couplings in the clock states, which, together with the spin-exchange interactions in the clock-state manifolds, give rise to SPT states for interacting fermions. We numerically investigate the phase diagram of the system, and study the phase transitions between the SPT phase a…
Periodic driving has the longstanding reputation for generating exotic phases of matter with no static counterparts. This work explores the interplay among periodic driving, interaction effects, and $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry that leads to the emergence of Floquet symmetry protected second-order topological phases in a simple but insightful two-dimensional spin-1/2 lattice. Through a combination of analytical and numerical treatments, we verify the formation of 0 and $π$ modes, i.e., corner localized $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry broken operators that respectively commute and anticommute with the one-p…
Topological insulators in free fermion systems have been well characterized and classified. However, it is not clear in strongly interacting boson or fermion systems what symmetry protected topological orders exist. In this paper, we present a model in a 2D interacting spin system with nontrivial on-site $Z_2$ symmetry protected topological order. The order is nontrivial because we can prove that the 1D system on the boundary must be gapless if the symmetry is not broken, which generalizes the gaplessness of Wess-Zumino-Witten model for Lie symmetry groups to any discrete symmetry groups. The …
We extend the periodic table of phases of free fermions in the ten-fold way symmetry classes to a classification of free fermionic phases protected by an arbitrary on-site unitary symmetry $\hat G$ in an arbitrary dimension. The classification is described as a function of the real representation theory of $\hat G$ and the data of the original periodic table. We also systematically study in low dimensions the relationship between the free invariants and the invariants of short-range entangled interacting phases of fermions. Namely we determine whether a given symmetry protected phase of free f…
Strong interactions can give rise to new fermionic symmetry protected topological phases which have no analogs in free fermion systems. As an example, we have systematically studied a spinless fermion model with $U(1)$ charge conservation and time reversal symmetry on a three-leg ladder using density-matrix renormalization group. In the non-interacting limit, there are no topological phases. Turning on interactions, we found two gapped phases. One is trivial and is adiabatically connected to a band insulator, while another one is a nontrivial symmetry protected topological phase resulting from…
We study a bosonic model with correlated hopping on a honeycomb lattice, and show that its ground state is a bosonic integer quantum Hall (BIQH) phase, a prominent example of a symmetry protected topological (SPT) phase. By using the infinite density matrix renormalization group method, we establish the existence of the BIQH phase by providing clear numerical evidence: (i) a quantized Hall conductance with $|σ_{xy}|= 2$ (ii) two counter propagating gapless edge modes. Our simple model is an example of a novel class of systems that can stabilize SPT phases protected by a continuous symmetry on …
Motivated by recent studies of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, we explore the possible gapless quantum disordered phases in the $(2+1)d$ nonlinear sigma model defined on the Grassmannian manifold $\frac{U(N)}{U(n)\times U(N - n)}$ with a Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) term at level $k$, which is the effective low energy field theory of the boundary of certain $(3+1)d$ SPT states. With $k = 0$, this model has a well-controlled large-$N$ limit, $i.e.$ its renormalization group equations can be computed exactly with large-$N$. However, with the WZW term, the large-$N$ and large-$k$ limit a…
It has been proposed recently that interacting Symmetry Protected Topological (SPT) phases can be classified using cobordism theory. We test this proposal in the case of fermionic SPT phases with Z/2 symmetry, where Z/2 is either time-reversal or an internal symmetry. We find that cobordism classification correctly describes all known fermionic SPT phases in space dimension less than or equal to 3 and also predicts that all such phases can be realized by free fermions. In higher dimensions we predict the existence of inherently interacting fermionic SPT phases.
We show how a large family of interacting nonequilibrium phases of matter can arise from the presence of multiple time-translation symmetries, which occur by quasiperiodically driving an isolated quantum many-body system with two or more incommensurate frequencies. These phases are fundamentally different from those realizable in time-independent or periodically-driven (Floquet) settings. Focusing on high-frequency drives with smooth time-dependence, we rigorously establish general conditions for which these phases are stable in a parametrically long-lived `preheating' regime. We develop a for…
Symmetry-Protected Topological Phases in the Triangular Majorana-Hubbard Ladder
Western Washington University（西华盛顿大学）；Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia（不列颠哥伦比亚大学斯图尔特·布拉斯量子物质研究所）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）
Samarium hexaboride (SmB$_6$), a well-known Kondo insulator in which the insulating bulk arises from strong electron correlations, has recently attracted great attention owing to increasing evidence for its topological nature, thereby harboring protected surface states. However, corroborative spectroscopic evidence is still lacking, unlike in the weakly correlated counterparts, including Bi$_2$Se$_3$. Here we report results from planar tunneling that unveil the detailed spectroscopic properties of SmB$_6$. The tunneling conductance obtained on the (001) and (011) single crystal surfaces reveal…
In recent years, great success has been achieved on the classification of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases for interacting fermion systems by using generalized cohomology theory. However, the explicit calculation of generalized cohomology theory is extremely hard due to the difficulty of computing obstruction functions. In this paper, based on the physical picture of topological invariants and mathematical techniques in homotopy algebra, we develop an algorithm to resolve this hard problem. It is well known that cochains in the cohomology of the symmetry group, which are used to enu…
We use higher dimensional bosonization and fermion decoration to construct exactly soluble interacting fermion models to realize fermionic symmetry protected trivial (SPT) orders (which are also known as symmetry protected topological orders) in any dimensions and for generic fermion symmetries $G_f$, which can be a non-trivial $Z_2^f$ extension (where $Z_2^f$ is the fermion-number-parity symmetry). This generalizes the previous results from group superconhomology of Gu and Wen (arXiv:1201.2648), where $G_f$ is assumed to be a trivial $Z_2^f$ extension. We find that the SPT phases from fermion…
We discuss the applicability of elementary band representations (EBRs) to diagnose spatial- and time-reversal-symmetry protected topological phases in interacting insulators in terms of their single-particle Green's functions. We do so by considering an auxiliary non-interacting system $H_{\textrm{T}}(\mathbf{k}) = -G^{-1}(0, \mathbf{k})$, known as the topological Hamiltonian, whose bands can be labeled by EBRs. This labeling is stable if neither (i) the gap in the spectral function at zero frequency closes, (ii) the Green's function has a zero at zero frequency or (iii) the Green's function b…
We describe recent progress in our understanding of the interplay between interactions, symmetry, and topology in states of quantum matter. We focus on a minimal generalization of the celebrated topological band insulators to interacting many particle systems, known as Symmetry Protected Topological (SPT) phases. In common with the topological band insulators these states have a bulk gap and no exotic excitations but have non-trivial surface states that are protected by symmetry. We describe the various possible such phases and their properties in three dimensional systems with realistic symme…
We study one-dimensional, interacting, gapped fermionic systems described by variants of the Peierls-Hubbard model and characterize their phases via a topological invariant constructed out of their Green's functions. We demonstrate that the existence of topologically protected, zero-energy states at the boundaries of these systems can be tied to the values of their topological invariant, just like when working with the conventional, noninteracting topological insulators. We use a combination of analytical methods and the numerical density matrix renormalization group method to calculate the va…
We present a microscopic model of interacting fermions where the ground state degeneracy is topologically protected. The model is based on a double-wire setup with local interactions in a particle number conserving setting. A compelling property of this model is the exact solvability for its ground states and low energy excitations. We demonstrate the appearance of topologically protected edge states and derive their braiding properties on a microscopic level. We find the non-abelian statistics of Ising anyons, which can be interpreted as Majorana-like edge states.
The interplay between topology and interactions on the edge of a two dimensional topological insulator with time reversal symmetry is studied. We consider a simple non-interacting system of three helical channels with an inherent $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological protection, and hence a zero-temperature conductance of $G=e^2/h$. We show that when interactions are added to the model, the ground state exhibits two different phases as function of the interaction parameters. One of these phases is a trivial insulator at zero temperature, as the symmetry protecting the non-interacting topological phase …
Anderson's localization on the edge of two dimensional time reversal (TR) topological insulator (TI) is studied. For the non-interacting case the topological protection acts accordingly to the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ classification, leading to conducting and insulating phases for odd and even fillings respectively. In the presence of repulsive interaction the phase diagram is notably changed. We show that for sufficiently strong values of the interaction the zero temperature fixed point of the TI is conducting, including the case of even fillings. We compute the boundaries of the conducting phase for v…
The classification and lattice model construction of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting fermion systems are very interesting but challenging. In this paper, we give a systematic fixed point wave function construction of fermionic SPT (FSPT) states for generic fermionic symmetry group $G_f=\mathbb{Z}_2^f \times_{ω_2} G_b$ which is a central extension of bosonic symmetry group $G_b$ (may contain time reversal symmetry) by the fermion parity symmetry group $\mathbb{Z}_2^f = \{1,P_f\}$. Our construction is based on the concept of equivalence class of finite depth fermionic …
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 non-interacting fermion systems with time reversal (T), charge conjugation (C), and/or U(1) (N) symmetries, the total symmetry group can depend on the relations between those symmetry operations, such as T N T^{-1}= N or T N T^{-1}= -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 …
We study Abelian braiding statistics of loop excitations in three-dimensional (3D) gauge theories with fermionic particles and the closely related problem of classifying 3D fermionic symmetry-protected topological (FSPT) phases with unitary symmetries. It is known that the two problems are related by turning FSPT phases into gauge theories through gauging the global symmetry of the former. We show that there exist certain types of Abelian loop braiding statistics that are allowed only in the the presence of fermionic particles, which correspond to 3D "intrinsic" FSPT phases, i.e., those that d…
Classification and construction of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting boson and fermion systems have become a fascinating theoretical direction in recent years. It has been shown that the (generalized) group cohomology theory or cobordism theory can give rise to a complete classification of SPT phases in interacting boson/spin systems. Nevertheless, the construction and classification of SPT phases in interacting fermion systems are much more complicated, especially in 3D. In this work, we revisit this problem based on the equivalent class of fermionic symmetric local u…
The energy dependence of the relaxation rate of hot electrons due to interaction with the Fermi sea is studied. We consider 2D and 3D systems, quasi-1D quantum wires with multiple transverse bands, as well as single-channel 1D wires. Our analysis includes both spinful and spin-polarized setups, with short-range and Coulomb interactions. We show that, quite generally, the relaxation rate is a non-monotonic function of the electron energy and decays as a power-law at high energies. In other words, ultra-hot electrons regain their coherence with increasing energy. Such a behavior was observed in …
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are short-range entangled phases of matter with a non-local order parameter which are preserved under a local symmetry group. Here, by using unsupervised learning algorithm, namely the diffusion maps, we demonstrate that can differentiate between symmetry broken phases and topologically ordered phases, and between non-trivial topological phases in different classes. In particular, we show that the phase transitions associated with these phases can be detected in different bosonic and fermionic models in one dimension. This includes the interacting SS…
The topological features of quantum many-body wave functions are known to have profound consequences for the physics of ground-states and their low-energy excitations. We describe how topology influences the dynamics of many-body systems when driven far from equilibrium. Our results are succinctly captured by a nonequilibrium topological classification that can be used to predict universal aspects of generic isolated quantum systems as they evolve unitarily in time. By analogy to the classifications used to describe systems in equilibrium, we consider two short-ranged entangled wave functions …
Abelian Chern-Simons theory, characterized by the so-called $K$ matrix, has been quite successful in characterizing and classifying Abelian fractional quantum hall effect (FQHE) as well as symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases, especially for bosonic SPT phases. However, there are still some puzzles in dealing with fermionic SPT(fSPT) phases. In this paper, we utilize the Abelian Chern-Simons theory to study the fSPT phases protected by arbitrary Abelian total symmetry $G_f$. Comparing to the bosonic SPT phases, fSPT phases with Abelian total symmetry $G_f$ has three new features: (1) it…
Time-dependent systems have recently been shown to support novel types of topological order that cannot be realised in static systems. In this paper, we consider a range of time-dependent, interacting systems in one dimension that are protected by an Abelian symmetry group. We classify the distinct topological phases that can exist in this setting and find that they may be described by a bulk invariant associated with the unitary evolution of the closed system. In the open system, nontrivial phases correspond to the appearance of edge modes in the many-body quasienergy spectrum, which relate t…
In free fermion systems with given symmetry and dimension, the possible topological phases are labeled by elements of only three types of Abelian groups, Z_1, Z_2, or Z. For example non-interacting 1D fermionic superconducting phases with S_z spin rotation and time-reversal symmetries are classified by Z. We show that with weak interactions, this classification reduces to Z_4. Using group cohomology, one can additionally show that there are only four distinct phases for such 1D superconductors even with strong interactions. Comparing their projective representations, we find all these four sym…
We study glide protected topological (GSPT) phases of interacting bosons and fermions in three spatial dimensions certain on-site symmetries. They are crystalline SPT phases, which are distinguished from a trivial product state only in the presence of non-symmorphic glide symmetry. We classify these GSPT phases with various on-site symmetries such as $U(1)$ and time reversal, and show that they can all be understood by stacking and coupling two-dimensional short-range-entangled phases in a glide-invariant way. Using such a coupled layer construction we study the anomalous surface topological o…
Quantum anomalies, breakdown of classical symmetries by quantum effects, provide a sharp definition of symmetry protected topological phases. In particular, they can diagnose interaction effects on the non-interacting classification of fermionic symmetry protected topological phases. In this paper, we identify quantum anomalies in two kinds of (3+1)-dimensional fermionic symmetry protected topological phases: (i) topological insulators protected by CP (charge conjugation $\times$ reflection) and electromagnetic $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetries, and (ii) topological superconductors protected by refle…
We report on angle resolved photoemission spectroscopic studies on a parent topological insulator (TI), Bi$_2$Se$_3$. The line width of the spectral function (inverse of the quasi-particle lifetime) of the topological metallic (TM) states shows an anomalous behavior. This behavior can be reasonably accounted for by assuming decay of the quasi-particles predominantly into bulk electronic states through electron-electron interaction and defect scattering. Studies on aged surfaces reveal that topological metallic states are very much unaffected by the potentials created by adsorbed atoms or molec…
Crystalline topological insulators owe their topological character to the protection that certain boundary states acquire because of certain point-group symmetries. We first show that a Hermitian operator obeying supersymmetric quantum mechanisms (SUSY QM) delivers the entanglement spectrum. We then show that such an entanglement spectrum that is compatible with a certain point-group symmetry obeys a certain local spectral symmetry. The latter result is applied to the stability analysis of four fermionic non-interacting Hamiltonians, the last of which describes graphene with a Kekule distortio…
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.…
Distinguishing the nontrivial symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase from the trivial insulator phase in the presence of electron-electron interaction is an urgent question to the study of topological insulators, due to the fact that most of the topological indices defined for free electron systems are very likely unsuitable for interacting cases. In this work, we demonstrate that the strange correlator is a sensitive diagnosis to detect SPT states in interacting systems. Employing large-scale quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations, we investigate the interaction-driven quantum phase transi…
Quantum phase transitions out of a symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phase in (1+1) dimensions into an adjacent, topologically distinct SPT phase protected by the same symmetry or a trivial gapped phase, are typically described by a conformal field theory (CFT). At the same time, the low-lying entanglement spectrum of a gapped phase close to such a quantum critical point is known(Cho et al., arXiv:1603.04016), very generally, to be universal and described by (gapless) boundary conformal field theory. Using this connection we show that symmetry properties of the boundary conditions in bounda…
Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases with gapless edge excitations have been shown to exist in principle in strongly interacting bosonic/fermionic systems and it is highly desirable to find practical systems to realize such phases through numerical calculation. A central question to be addressed is how to determine the SPT order in the system given the numerical simulation result while no local order parameter can be measured to distinguish the phases from a trivial one. In the tensor network approach to simulate strongly interacting systems, the quantum state renormalization algorithm …
