Topological BF field theory description of topological insulators

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2010.12.011zbMATH Open1219.81222arXiv1011.3485OpenAlexW3102381579MaRDI QIDQ549165FDOQ549165

Authors: Gil Young Cho, Joel E. Moore 

Publication date: 7 July 2011

Published in: Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Topological phases of matter are described universally by topological field theories in the same way that symmetry-breaking phases of matter are described by Landau-Ginzburg field theories. We propose that topological insulators in two and three dimensions are described by a version of abelian $BF$ theory. For the two-dimensional topological insulator or quantum spin Hall state, this description is essentially equivalent to a pair of Chern-Simons theories, consistent with the realization of this phase as paired integer quantum Hall effect states. The $BF$ description can be motivated from the local excitations produced when a $pi$ flux is threaded through this state. For the three-dimensional topological insulator, the $BF$ description is less obvious but quite versatile: it contains a gapless surface Dirac fermion when time-reversal-symmetry is preserved and yields "axion electrodynamics", i.e., an electromagnetic $EcdotB$ term, when time-reversal symmetry is broken and the surfaces are gapped. Just as changing the coefficients and charges of 2D Chern-Simons theory allows one to obtain fractional quantum Hall states starting from integer states, $BF$ theory could also describe (at a macroscopic level) fractional 3D topological insulators with fractional statistics of point-like and line-like objects.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.3485

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zbMATH Keywords

bosonizationChern-Simons theorytopological phasequantum Hall effecttopological insulator

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Eta-invariants, Chern-Simons invariants (58J28) Topological field theories in quantum mechanics (81T45) Many-body theory; quantum Hall effect (81V70)

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Cited In (32)

• Statistical physics of flux-carrying Brownian particles
• Three-dimensional topological insulators and bosonization
• Field theory of higher-order topological crystalline response, generalized global symmetries and elasticity tetrads
• Emergent vortex-electron interaction from dualization
• Effective field theory of a topological insulator and the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation
• Abelian BF theory and Turaev-Viro invariant
• Adiabatic deformations of quantum Hall droplets
• Perturbative BF theory
• Extended actions, dynamics of edge modes, and entanglement entropy
• Sequential Measurements, Topological Quantum Field Theories, and Topological Quantum Neural Networks
• Higher (odd) dimensional quantum Hall effect and extended dimensional hierarchy
• Effective Lagrangian for non-abelian two-dimensional topological field theory
• TOPOLOGICAL EFFECTIVE FIELD THEORIES FOR DIRAC FERMIONS FROM INDEX THEOREM
• Conserved chiral currents on the boundary of 3D Maxwell theory
• From topological insulators to superconductors and confinement
• Hydrodynamics, anomaly inflow and bosonic effective field theory
• Integrability and BRST invariance from BF topological theory
• Towards holography in the BV-BFV setting
• Topological field theory for p-wave superconductors
• Fermion-fermion duality in 3+1 dimensions
• Bosonization of 2+1 dimensional fermions on the surface of topological insulators
• Bosonic topological insulators at the superconductor-to-superinsulator transition
• The theory of symmetric tensor field: from fractons to gravitons and back
• Geometric model of topological insulators from the Maxwell algebra
• \(3 + 1 D\) massless Weyl spinors from bosonic scalar-tensor duality
• Higgsless superconductivity from topological defects in compact BF terms
• Transgression field theory at the interface of topological insulators
• Quantization of a self-dual conformal theory in (2 + 1) dimensions
• A new Hamiltonian for the topological BF phase with spinor networks
• Interacting systems and wormholes
• Three-dimensional dynamics of four-dimensional topological BF theory with boundary
• Non-abelian BF theory for 2 + 1 dimensional topological states of matter

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