English

Zoo of quantum-topological phases of matter

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2017-12-13 v3

Abstract

What are topological phases of matter? First, they are phases of matter at zero temperature. Second, they have a non-zero energy gap for the excitations above the ground state. Third, they are disordered liquids that seem have no feature. But those disordered liquids actually can have rich patterns of many-body entanglement representing new kinds of order. This paper will give a simple introduction and a brief survey of topological phases of matter. We will first discuss topological phases that have topological order (ie with long range entanglement). Then we will cover topological phases that have no topological order (ie with only short-range entanglement).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1610.03911,
  title  = {Zoo of quantum-topological phases of matter},
  author = {Xiao-Gang Wen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.03911},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

18 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. A short review, expanded version