English

Translation symmetry-enriched toric code insulator

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2022-01-19 v2 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Superconductivity

Abstract

We introduce a two-dimensional electronic insulator that possesses a toric code topological order enriched by translation symmetry. This state can be realized from disordering a weak topological superconductor by double-vortex condensation. It is termed the toric code insulator, whose anyonic excitations consist of a charge-ee chargon, a neutral fermion and two types of visons. There are two types of visons because they have constrained motion as a consequence of the fractional Josephson effect of one-dimensional topological superconductor. Importantly, these two types of visons are related by a discrete translation symmetry and have a mutual semionic braiding statistics, leading to a symmetry-enrichment akin to the type in Wen's plaquette model and Kitaev's honeycomb model. We construct this state using a three-fluid coupled-wire model, and analyze the anyon spectrum and braiding statistics in detail to unveil the nature of symmetry-enrichment due to translation. We also discuss potential material realizations and present a band-theoretic understanding of the state, fitting it into a general framework for studying fractionalizaton in strongly-interacting weak topological phases.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2107.04030,
  title  = {Translation symmetry-enriched toric code insulator},
  author = {Pok Man Tam and Jörn W. F. Venderbos and Charles L. Kane},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.04030},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

15 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Comments are welcome

R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:00:56.420Z