Frustrated topological symmetry breaking: Geometrical frustration and anyon condensation

Marc D Schulz, Fiona J. Burnell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

We study the phase diagram of a topological string-net-type lattice model in the presence of geometrically frustrated interactions. These interactions drive several phase transitions that reduce the topological order, leading to a rich phase diagram including both Abelian (Z2) and non-Abelian (Ising×Ising ) topologically ordered phases, as well as phases with broken translational symmetry. Interestingly, one of these phases simultaneously exhibits (Abelian) topological order and long-ranged order due to translational symmetry breaking, with nontrivial interactions between excitations in the topological order and defects in the long-ranged order. We introduce a variety of effective models, valid along certain lines in the phase diagram, which can be used to characterize both topological and symmetry-breaking order in these phases and in many cases allow us to characterize the phase transitions that separate them. We use exact diagonalization and high-order series expansion to study areas of the phase diagram where these models break down and to approximate the location of the phase boundaries.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number165110
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume94
Issue number16
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2016
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Physical Society.

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