No Arabic abstract
We study the entanglement spectrum of noninteracting band insulators, which can be computed from the two-point correlation function, when restricted to one part of the system. In particular, we analyze a type of partitioning of the system that maintains its full translational symmetry, by tracing over a subset of local degrees of freedom, such as sublattice sites or spin orientations. The corresponding single-particle entanglement spectrum is the band structure of an entanglement Hamiltonian in the Brillouin zone. We find that the hallmark of a nontrivial topological phase is a gapless entanglement spectrum with an entanglement Fermi surface. Furthermore, we derive a relation between the entanglement spectrum and the quantum geometry of Bloch states contained in the Fubini-Study metric. The results are illustrated with lattice models of Chern insulators and Z_2 topological insulators.
How do we uniquely identify a quantum phase, given its ground state wave-function? This is a key question for many body theory especially when we consider phases like topological insulators, that share the same symmetry but differ at the level of topology. The entanglement spectrum has been proposed as a ground state property that captures characteristic edge excitations. Here we study the entanglement spectrum for topological band insulators. We first show that insulators with topological surface states will necessarily also have protected modes in the entanglement spectrum. Surprisingly, however, the converse is not true. Protected entanglement modes can also appear for insulators without physical surface states, in which case they capture a more elusive property. This is illustrated by considering insulators with only inversion symmetry. Inversion is shown to act in an unusual way, as an antiunitary operator, on the entanglement spectrum, leading to this protection. The entanglement degeneracies indicate a variety of different phases in inversion symmetric insulators, and these phases are argued to be robust to the introduction of interactions.
Quantum field theories have a rich structure in the presence of boundaries. We study the groundstates of conformal field theories (CFTs) and Lifshitz field theories in the presence of a boundary through the lens of the entanglement entropy. For a family of theories in general dimensions, we relate the universal terms in the entanglement entropy of the bulk theory with the corresponding terms for the theory with a boundary. This relation imposes a condition on certain boundary central charges. For example, in 2 + 1 dimensions, we show that the corner-induced logarithmic terms of free CFTs and certain Lifshitz theories are simply related to those that arise when the corner touches the boundary. We test our findings on the lattice, including a numerical implementation of Neumann boundary conditions. We also propose an ansatz, the boundary Extensive Mutual Information model, for a CFT with a boundary whose entanglement entropy is purely geometrical. This model shows the same bulk-boundary connection as Dirac fermions and certain supersymmetric CFTs that have a holographic dual. Finally, we discuss how our results can be generalized to all dimensions as well as to massive quantum field theories.
We uncover topological features of neutral particle-hole pair excitations of correlated quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulators whose approximately flat conduction and valence bands have equal and opposite non-zero Chern number. Using an exactly solvable model we show that the underlying band topology affects both the center-of-mass and relative motion of particle-hole bound states. This leads to the formation of topological exciton bands whose features are robust to nonuniformity of both the dispersion and the Berry curvature. We apply these ideas to recently-reported broken-symmetry spontaneous QAH insulators in substrate aligned magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene.
The theory of topological insulators and superconductors has mostly focused on non-interacting and gapped systems. This review article discusses topological phases that are either gapless or interacting. We discuss recent progress in identifying gapless systems with stable topological properties (such as novel surface states), using Weyl semimetals as an illustration. We then review recent progress in describing topological phases of interacting gapped systems. We explain how new types of edge states can be stabilized by interactions and symmetry, even though the bulk has only conventional excitations and no topological order of the kind associated with Fractional Quantum Hall states.
Quantum geometry has emerged as a central and ubiquitous concept in quantum sciences, with direct consequences on quantum metrology and many-body quantum physics. In this context, two fundamental geometric quantities play complementary roles: the Fubini-Study metric, which introduces a notion of distance between quantum states defined over a parameter space, and the Berry curvature associated with Berry-phase effects and topological band structures. In fact, recent studies have revealed direct relations between these two important quantities, suggesting that topological properties can, in special cases, be deduced from the quantum metric. In this work, we establish general and exact relations between the quantum metric and the topological invariants of generic Dirac Hamiltonians. In particular, we demonstrate that topological indices (Chern numbers or winding numbers) are bounded by the quantum volume determined by the quantum metric. Our theoretical framework, which builds on the Clifford algebra of Dirac matrices, is applicable to topological insulators and semimetals of arbitrary spatial dimensions, with or without chiral symmetry. This work clarifies the role of the Fubini-Study metric in topological states of matter, suggesting unexplored topological responses and metrological applications in a broad class of quantum-engineered systems.