The complete set of infinite volume ground states for Kitaev's abelian quantum double models (Q2413042)

In condensed matter physics, the notion of topological order has been used over the last decades to describe a new class of matter states. Topological order arises in the zero-temperature phase of quantum matter. The latter is characterised by a strong ground state degeneracy and quantised geometric phases. States with different topological orders cannot change into each other without a phase transition. Topologically ordered states also exhibit fractional statistics, or anyons, which generalize the standard Bose and Fermi statistics of quantum theory. The potential applications of this formalism range from quantum computing to particle physics. The topological orders initially described in the literature correspond to the abelian group \(Z_2\); in the course of time, the latter was extended to other finite abelian groups \(G\). In the present paper, Kitaev's quantum double model is studied for such a \(G\), and the infinite-volume ground states are classified. It is proved that the set of ground states splits into \(| G|^2\) different charged sectors, where \(| G|\) denotes the order of the group. Each charged sector is shown to correspond to a different type of abelian anyon. All pure ground states are proved to be equivalent to ground states describing a single excitation. It is also established that the set of known ground states for Kitaev's quantum double model is complete. The remaining challenge is how to describe non-abelian anyons: the would be the case of a finite, non-abelian \(G\).