Fracton topological phases from strongly coupled spin chains
Abstract
We provide a new perspective on fracton topological phases, a class of three-dimensional topologically ordered phases with unconventional fractionalized excitations that are either completely immobile or only mobile along particular lines or planes. We demonstrate that a wide range of these fracton phases can be constructed by strongly coupling mutually intersecting spin chains and explain via a concrete example how such a coupled-spin-chain construction illuminates the generic properties of a fracton phase. In particular, we describe a systematic translation from each coupled-spin-chain construction into a parton construction where the partons correspond to the excitations that are mobile along lines. Remarkably, our construction of fracton phases is inherently based on spin models involving only two-spin interactions and thus brings us closer to their experimental realization.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1707.02308,
title = {Fracton topological phases from strongly coupled spin chains},
author = {Gábor B. Halász and Timothy H. Hsieh and Leon Balents},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.02308},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
5+2 pages, 4 figures, published version with one more supplementary section