English

Classification of topological phases in periodically driven interacting systems

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2016-05-19 v3 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks Statistical Mechanics Quantum Physics

Abstract

We consider topological phases in periodically driven (Floquet) systems exhibiting many-body localization, protected by a symmetry GG. We argue for a general correspondence between such phases and topological phases of undriven systems protected by symmetry ZG\mathbb{Z} \rtimes G, where the additional Z\mathbb{Z} accounts for the discrete time translation symmetry. Thus, for example, the bosonic phases in dd spatial dimensions without intrinsic topological order (SPT phases) are classified by the cohomology group Hd+1(ZG,U(1))H^{d+1}(\mathbb{Z} \rtimes G, \mathrm{U}(1)). For unitary symmetries, we interpret the additional resulting Floquet phases in terms of the lower-dimensional SPT phases that are pumped to the boundary during one time step. These results also imply the existence of novel symmetry-enriched topological (SET) orders protected solely by the periodicity of the drive.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.04804,
  title  = {Classification of topological phases in periodically driven interacting systems},
  author = {Dominic V. Else and Chetan Nayak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.04804},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

3 pages + appendices, comments welcome. v3: final published version, with some arguments explained in more depth. v2: updated abstract, added reference

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:50:41.448Z