English

Topological phases protected by point group symmetry

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2017-04-06 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We consider symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases with crystalline point group symmetry, dubbed point group SPT (pgSPT) phases. We show that such phases can be understood in terms of lower-dimensional topological phases with on-site symmetry, and can be constructed as stacks and arrays of these lower-dimensional states. This provides the basis for a general framework to classify and characterize bosonic and fermionic pgSPT phases, that can be applied for arbitrary crystalline point group symmetry and in arbitrary spatial dimension. We develop and illustrate this framework by means of a few examples, focusing on three-dimensional states. We classify bosonic pgSPT phases and fermionic topological crystalline superconductors with Z2PZ_2^P (reflection) symmetry, electronic topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) with U(1)×Z2P{\rm U}(1) \times {Z}_2^P symmetry, and bosonic pgSPT phases with C2vC_{2v} symmetry, which is generated by two perpendicular mirror reflections. We also study surface properties, with a focus on gapped, topologically ordered surface states. For electronic TCIs we find a Z8×Z2Z_8 \times Z_2 classification, where the Z8Z_8 corresponds to known states obtained from non-interacting electrons, and the Z2Z_2 corresponds to a "strongly correlated" TCI that requires strong interactions in the bulk. Our approach may also point the way toward a general theory of symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases with crystalline point group symmetry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.08151,
  title  = {Topological phases protected by point group symmetry},
  author = {Hao Song and Sheng-Jie Huang and Liang Fu and Michael Hermele},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.08151},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

v2: Minor changes/additions to introduction and discussion sections, references added, published version. 21 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:42:43.586Z