No Arabic abstract
A symmetry-protected topologically ordered phase is a short-range entangled state, for which some imposed symmetry prohibits the adiabatic deformation into a trivial state which lacks entanglement. In this paper we argue that magnetization plateau states of one-dimensional antiferromagnets which satisfy the conditions $S-min$ odd integer, where $S$ is the spin quantum number and $m$ the magnetization per site, can be identified as symmetry-protected topological states if an inversion symmetry about the link center is present. This assertion is reached by mapping the antiferromagnet into a nonlinear sigma model type effective field theory containing a novel Berry phase term (a total derivative term) with a coefficient proportional to the quantity $S-m$, and then analyzing the topological structure of the ground state wave functional which is inherited from the latter term. A boson-vortex duality transformation is employed to examine the topological stability of the ground state in the absence/presence of a perturbation violating link-center inversion symmetry. Our prediction based on field theories is verified by means of a numerical study of the entanglement spectra of actual spin chains, which we find to exhibit twofold degeneracies when the aforementioned condition is met. We complete this study with a rigorous analysis using matrix product states.
Symmetry-protected trivial (SPt) phases of matter are the product-state analogue of symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases. This means, SPt phases can be adiabatically connected to a product state by some path that preserves the protecting symmetry. Moreover, SPt and SPT phases can be adiabatically connected to each other when interaction terms that break the symmetries protecting the SPT order are added in the Hamiltonian. It is also known that spin-1 SPT phases in quantum spin chains can emerge as effective intermediate phases of spin-2 Hamiltonians. In this paper we show that a similar scenario is also valid for SPt phases. More precisely, we show that for a given spin-2 quantum chain, effective intermediate spin-1 SPt phases emerge in some regions of the phase diagram, these also being adiabatically connected to non-trivial intermediate SPT phases. We characterize the phase diagram of our model by studying quantities such as the entanglement entropy, symmetry-related order parameters, and 1-site fidelities. Our numerical analysis uses Matrix Product States (MPS) and the infinite Time-Evolving Block Decimation (iTEBD) method to approximate ground states of the system in the thermodynamic limit. Moreover, we provide a field theory description of the possible quantum phase transitions between the SPt phases. Together with the numerical results, such a description shows that the transitions may be described by Conformal Field Theories (CFT) with central charge c=1. Our results are in agreement, and further generalize, those in [Y. Fuji, F. Pollmann, M. Oshikawa, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 177204 (2015)].
Topological spin liquids are robust quantum states of matter with long-range entanglement and possess many exotic properties such as the fractional statistics of the elementary excitations. Yet these states, short of local parameters like all topological states, are elusive for conventional experimental probes. In this work, we combine theoretical analysis and quantum Monte Carlo numerics on a frustrated spin model which hosts a $mathbb Z_2$ topological spin liquid ground state, and demonstrate that the presence of symmetry-protected gapless edge modes is a characteristic feature of the state, originating from the nontrivial symmetry fractionalization of the elementary excitations. Experimental observation of these modes on the edge would directly indicate the existence of the topological spin liquids in the bulk, analogous to the fact that the observation of Dirac edge states confirmed the existence of topological insulators.
Charge order affects most of the electronic properties but is believed not to alter the spin arrangement since the magnetic susceptibility remains unchanged. We present electron-spin-resonance experiments on quasi-one-dimensional (TMTTF)2X salts (X= PF6, AsF6 and SbF6), which reveal that the magnetic properties are modified below TCO when electronic ferroelectricity sets in. The coupling of anions and organic molecules rotates the g-tensor out of the molecular plane creating magnetically non-equivalent sites on neighboring chains at domain walls. Due to anisotropic Zeeman interaction a novel magnetic interaction mechanism in the charge-ordered state is observed as a doubling of the rotational periodicity of Delta H.
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 if we introduce a bulk. Then we discuss the layer structure and systematical construction of ASPT states in interacting fermion systems in 2D with a total symmetry $G_f=G_btimesmathbb{Z}_2^f$. Finally, potential experimental realizations of ASPT states are also addressed.
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.