Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Science. 2012 Dec 21;338(6114):1604-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1227224.
Symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases are bulk-gapped quantum phases with symmetries, which have gapless or degenerate boundary states as long as the symmetries are not broken. The SPT phases in free fermion systems, such as topological insulators, can be classified; however, it is not known what SPT phases exist in general interacting systems. We present a systematic way to construct SPT phases in interacting bosonic systems. Just as group theory allows us to construct 230 crystal structures in three-dimensional space, we use group cohomology theory to systematically construct different interacting bosonic SPT phases in any dimension and with any symmetry, leading to the discovery of bosonic topological insulators and superconductors.
对称保护拓扑 (SPT) 相是具有对称性的体隙量子相,只要对称性不被破坏,就具有无带隙或简并的边界态。自由费米子系统中的 SPT 相,如拓扑绝缘体,可以进行分类;然而,一般相互作用系统中存在哪些 SPT 相尚不清楚。我们提出了一种在相互作用玻色子系统中构建 SPT 相的系统方法。正如群论允许我们在三维空间中构建 230 种晶体结构一样,我们使用群上同调理论系统地在任何维度和任何对称性下构建不同的相互作用玻色 SPT 相,从而发现了玻色拓扑绝缘体和超导体。