No Arabic abstract
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 first building an auxiliary bosonic model, and then fermionizing it using the duality of Chen, Kapustin, and Radicevic. One benefit of this approach is that it clearly disentangles the role of the algebraic group supercohomology data, which is used to build the auxiliary bosonic model, from that of the spin structure, which is combinatorially encoded in the lattice and enters only in the fermionization step. In particular this allows us to study our models on 2d spatial manifolds of any topology and to define a lattice-level procedure for ungauging fermion parity.
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 $mathbb{Z}_4timesmathbb{Z}_2^T$ 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 Luttinger liquid, with nontrivial symmetry transformations that can only be realized in strongly interacting systems. We further demonstrate the symmetry-protected gaplessness under various perturbations, and the bulk-edge correspondence in the theory.
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 does not. We then turn to 2+1D, and construct the square roots of the Levin-Gu bosonic SPT phase, protected by $mathbb Z_2 times mathbb Z_2^F$ symmetry, in a concrete model of fermions and spins on the triangular lattice. Edge states and the anomalous symmetry action on them are explicitly derived. Although this phase has a free fermion representation as two copies of $p+ip$ superconductors combined with their $p-ip$ counterparts with a different symmetry charge, the full set of commuting projectors is only realized in the strongly interacting version, which also implies that it admits a many-body localized realization.
We study classification of interacting fermionic symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases with both rotation symmetry and Abelian internal symmetries in one, two, and three dimensions. By working out this classification, on the one hand, we demonstrate the recently proposed correspondence principle between crystalline topological phases and those with internal symmetries through explicit block-state constructions. We find that for the precise correspondence to hold it is necessary to change the central extension structure of the symmetry group by the $mathbb{Z}_2$ fermion parity. On the other hand, we uncover new classes of intrinsically fermionic SPT phases that are only enabled by interactions, both in 2D and 3D with four-fold rotation. Moreover, several new instances of Lieb-Schultz-Mattis-type theorems for Majorana-type fermionic SPTs are obtained and we discuss their interpretations from the perspective of bulk-boundary correspondence.
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 do not stem from bosonic SPT phases. While such intrinsic FSPT phases are ubiquitous in 2D systems and in 3D systems with anti-unitary symmetries, their existence in 3D systems with unitary symmetries was not confirmed previously due to the fact that strong interaction is necessary to realize them. We show that the simplest unitary symmetry to support 3D intrinsic FSPT phases is $mathbb{Z}_2timesmathbb{Z}_4$. To establish the results, we first derive a complete set of physical constraints on Abelian loop braiding statistics. Solving the constraints, we obtain all possible Abelian loop braiding statistics in 3D gauge theories, including those that correspond to intrinsic FSPT phases. Then, we construct exactly soluble state-sum models to realize the loop braiding statistics. These state-sum models generalize the well-known Crane-Yetter and Dijkgraaf-Witten models.
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 $G_f=mathbb{Z}_2^f times_{omega_2} G_b$ 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 symmetric local unitary (FSLU) transformations and decorating symmetry domain wall picture, subjected to certain obstructions. We will also discuss the systematical construction and classification of boundary anomalous SPT (ASPT) states which leads to a trivialization of the corresponding bulk FSPT states. Thus, we conjecture that the obstruction-free and trivialization-free constructions naturally lead to a classification of FSPT phases. Each fixed-point wave function admits an exactly solvable commuting-projector Hamiltonian. We believe that our classification scheme can be generalized to point/space group symmetry as well as continuum Lie group symmetry.