English

Composing topological domain walls and anyon mobility

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2023-08-30 v1 Mathematical Physics Category Theory math.MP Quantum Algebra Quantum Physics

Abstract

Topological domain walls separating 2+1 dimensional topologically ordered phases can be understood in terms of Witt equivalences between the UMTCs describing anyons in the bulk topological orders. However, this picture does not provide a framework for decomposing stacks of multiple domain walls into superselection sectors - i.e., into fundamental domain wall types that cannot be mixed by any local operators. Such a decomposition can be understood using an alternate framework in the case that the topological order is anomaly-free, in the sense that it can be realized by a commuting projector lattice model. By placing these Witt equivalences in the context of a 3-category of potentially anomalous (2+1)D topological orders, we develop a framework for computing the decomposition of parallel topological domain walls into indecomposable superselection sectors, extending the previous understanding to topological orders with non-trivial anomaly. We characterize the superselection sectors in terms of domain wall particle mobility, which we formalize in terms of tunnelling operators. The mathematical model for the 3-category of topological orders is the 3-category of fusion categories enriched over a fixed unitary modular tensor category.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.14018,
  title  = {Composing topological domain walls and anyon mobility},
  author = {Peter Huston and Fiona Burnell and Corey Jones and David Penneys},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.14018},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-25T02:04:44.308Z