A local Hamiltonian with Topological Quantum Order (TQO) has a robust ground state degeneracy that makes it an excellent quantum memory candidate. This memory can be corrupted however if part of the state leaves the protected ground state manifold and returns later with a dynamically accrued phase error. Here we analyse how TQO suppresses this process and use this to quantify the degree to which spectral densities in different topological sectors are correlated. We provide numerical verification of our results by modelling an interacting p-wave superconducting wire.
Fracton topological order (FTO) is a new classification of correlated phases in three spatial dimensions with topological ground state degeneracy (GSD) scaling up with system size, and fractional excitations which are immobile or have restricted mobility. With the topological origin of GSD, FTO is immune to local perturbations, whereas a strong enough global external perturbation is expected to break the order. The critical point of the topological transition is however very challenging to identify. In this work, we propose to characterize quantum phase transition of the type-I FTOs induced by external terms and develop a theory to study analytically the critical point of the transition. In particular, for the external perturbation term creating lineon-type excitations, we predict a generic formula for the critical point of the quantum phase transition, characterized by the breaking-down of GSD. This theory applies to a board class of FTOs, including X-cube model, and for more generic FTO models under perturbations creating two-dimensional (2D) or 3D excitations, we predict the upper and lower limits of the critical point. Our work makes a step in characterizing analytically the quantum phase transition of generic fracton orders.
A number of tools have been developed to detect topological phase transitions in strongly correlated quantum systems. They apply under different conditions, but do not cover the full range of many-body models. It is hence desirable to further expand the toolbox. Here, we propose to use quasiparticle properties to detect quantum phase transitions. The approach is independent from the choice of boundary conditions, and it does not assume a particular lattice structure. The probe is hence suitable for, e.g., fractals and quasicrystals. The method requires that one can reliably create quasiparticles in the considered systems. In the simplest cases, this can be done by a pinning potential, while it is less straightforward in more complicated systems. We apply the method to several rather different examples, including one that cannot be handled by the commonly used probes, and in all the cases we find that the numerical costs are low. This is so, because a simple property, such as the charge of the anyons, is sufficient to detect the phase transition point. For some of the examples, this allows us to study larger systems and/or further parameter values compared to previous studies.
We study a quantum phase transition between a phase which is topologically ordered and one which is not. We focus on a spin model, an extension of the toric code, for which we obtain the exact ground state for all values of the coupling constant that takes the system across the phase transition. We compute the entanglement and the topological entropy of the system as a function of this coupling constant, and show that the topological entropy remains constant all the way up to the critical point, and jumps to zero beyond it. Despite the jump in the topological entropy, the transition is second order as detected via any local observable.
We develop a dynamical symmetry approach to path integrals for general interacting quantum spin systems. The time-ordered exponential obtained after the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation can be disentangled into the product of a finite number of the usual exponentials. This procedure leads to a set of stochastic differential equations on the group manifold, which can be further formulated in terms of the supersymmetric effective action. This action has the form of the Witten topological field theory in the continuum limit. As a consequence, we show how it can be used to obtain the exact results for a specific quantum many-body system which can be otherwise solved only by the Bethe ansatz. To our knowledge this represents the first example of a many-body system treated exactly using the path integral formulation. Moreover, our method can deal with time-dependent parameters, which we demonstrate explicitly.
We study a generalization of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model, combining both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic two-body interactions, that hosts exact global and local Z2 gauge symmetries. Using exact diagonalization and stochastic series expansion quantum Monte Carlo methods, we confirm the existence of the topological phase in line with previous theoretical predictions. Our simulation results show that the transition between the confined topological phase and the deconfined paramagnetic phase is of first-order, in contrast to the conventional Z2 lattice gauge model in which the transition maps onto that of the standard Ising model and is continuous. We further generalize the model by replacing the transverse field on the gauge spins with a ferromagnetic XX interaction while keeping the local gauge symmetry intact. We find that the Z2 topological phase remains stable, while the paramagnetic phase is replaced by a ferromagnetic phase. The topological-ferromagnetic quantum phase transition is also of first-order. For both models, we discuss the low-energy spinon and vison excitations of the topological phase and their avoided level crossings associated with the first-order quantum phase transitions.