On Defects Between Gapped Boundaries in Two-Dimensional Topological Phases of Matter

DOI10.1103/PHYSREVB.96.195129arXiv1703.03564MaRDI QIDQ6284153FDOQ6284153

Iris Cong, Meng Cheng, Zhenghan Wang

Publication date: 10 March 2017

Abstract: Defects between gapped boundaries provide a possible physical realization of projective non-abelian braid statistics. A notable example is the projective Majorana/parafermion braid statistics of boundary defects in fractional quantum Hall/topological insulator and superconductor heterostructures. In this paper, we develop general theories to analyze the topological properties and projective braiding of boundary defects of topological phases of matter in two spatial dimensions. We present commuting Hamiltonians to realize defects between gapped boundaries in any $(2+1)D$ untwisted Dijkgraaf-Witten theory, and use these to describe their topological properties such as their quantum dimension. By modeling the algebraic structure of boundary defects through multi-fusion categories, we establish a bulk-edge correspondence between certain boundary defects and symmetry defects in the bulk. Even though it is not clear how to physically braid the defects, this correspondence elucidates the projective braid statistics for many classes of boundary defects, both amongst themselves and with bulk anyons. Specifically, three such classes of importance to condensed matter physics/topological quantum computation are studied in detail: (1) A boundary defect version of Majorana and parafermion zero modes, (2) a similar version of genons in bilayer theories, and (3) boundary defects in $mathfrakD(S_3)$.

This page was built for publication: On Defects Between Gapped Boundaries in Two-Dimensional Topological Phases of Matter

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6284153)