Constraints on two-dimensional conformal field theories from knot invariants

The connection between Witten's topological three-dimensional gauge theory and RCFTs provides a natural setting to study the interplay between surface diffeomorphisms and intertwining of Wilson loops. These considerations lead directly to constraints on RFCTs including those previously derived by Vafa.     

Sigma-models having supermanifolds as target spaces

We study a topological sigma-model (A-model) in the case when the target space is an (m ₀|m ₁)-dimensional supermanifold. We prove under certain conditions that such a model is equivalent to an A-model having an (m ₀–m ₁)-dimensional manifold as a target space. We use this result to prove that in the case when the target space of A-model is a complete intersection in a toric manifold, this A-model is equivalent to an A-model having a toric supermanifold as a target space.Research supported in part by NSF grant No. DMS-9201366.     

Universal R-matrix of the quantum superalgebra osp(2 | 1)

A quantum analogue of the simplest superalgebra osp(2 | 1) and its finite-dimensional, irreducible representations are found. The corresponding constant solution to the Yang-Baxter equation is constructed and is used to formulate the Hopf superalgebra of functions on the quantum supergroup OSp(2 | 1).     

Supercurrent coupling in the Faddeev–Skyrme model

Motivated by the sigma model limit of multicomponent Ginzburg–Landau theory, a version of the Faddeev–Skyrme model is considered in which the scalar field is coupled dynamically to a one-form field called the supercurrent. This coupled model is investigated in the general setting where physical space M$M$ is an oriented Riemannian manifold and the target space N$N$ is a Kähler manifold, and its properties are compared with the usual, uncoupled Faddeev–Skyrme model. In the case N=S²$N=S^2$, it is shown that supercurrent coupling destroys the familiar topological lower energy bound of Vakulenko and Kapitanski when M=R³$M={\mathbb{R}}^3$, and the less familiar linear bound when M$M$ is a compact 3-manifold. Nonetheless, local energy minimizers may still exist. The first variation formula is derived and used to construct three families of static solutions of the model, all on compact domains. In particular, a coupled version of the unit charge hopfion on a three-sphere of arbitrary radius is found. The second variation formula is derived, and used to analyze the stability of some of these solutions. In particular, it is shown that, in contrast to the uncoupled model, the coupled unit hopfion on the three-sphere of radius R$R$ is unstable   for all R$R$. This gives an explicit, exact example of supercurrent coupling destabilizing a stable solution of the usual Faddeev–Skyrme model, and casts doubt on the conjecture of Babaev, Faddeev and Niemi that knot solitons should exist in the low energy regime of two-component superconductors.     

The cyclic representations of the quantum superalgebra U q osp(2, 1) withq a root of unity

By generalizing De Concini and Kac's cyclic representation theory of quantum groups at roots of unity, the cyclic representations of the quantum superalgebra U _q osp(2, 1) are constructed in three classes: irreducible representations with single multiplicities, irreducible representations with the multiplicities larger than one, and indecomposable representations.This work is supported in part by the National Sciene Foundation in China.     

A Remark on the Estimate of a Determinant by Minami

In the context of the Anderson model, Minami proved a Wegner type bound on the expectation of 2 × 2 determinant of Green’s functions. We generalize it so as to allow for a magnetic field, as well as to determinants of higher order.      

Topology and universality in the lattice CP2 model

The topological susceptibility χ_t and the correlation length ξ in the CP² model on a two-dimensional triangular lattice are calculated by the Monte Carlo simulation method. Using variant lattice actions, we verify the universality of the dimensionless quantity χ_tξ² ～- 0.09 in the scaling region, thus indicating the presence of physical topological effects in the scaling limit. As a by-product, we obtain a combinatorial formula for the topological charge.     

Absence of species doubling in finite-element quantum electrodynamics

In this Letter, it will be demonstrated explicitly that the finite-element formulation of quantum electrodynamics is free from fermion doubling. We do this by (1) examining the lattice fermion propagator and using it to compute the one-loop vacuum polarization on the lattice, and (2) by an explict computation of vector and axial-vector current anomalies for an arbitrary rectangular lattice in the Schwinger model. There it is shown that requiring that the vector current be conserved necessitates the use of a square lattice, in which case the axial-vector current is anomalous.     

Z2 topological term, the global anomaly, and the two-dimensional symplectic symmetry class of Anderson localization

We discuss, for a two-dimensional Dirac Hamiltonian with a random scalar potential, the presence of a Z2 topological term in the nonlinear sigma model encoding the physics of Anderson localization in the symplectic symmetry class. The Z2 topological term realizes the sign of the Pfaffian of a family of Dirac operators. We compute the corresponding global anomaly, i.e., the change in the sign of the Pfaffian by studying a spectral flow numerically. This Z2 topological effect can be relevant to graphene when the impurity potential is long ranged and, also, to the two-dimensional boundaries of a three-dimensional lattice model of Z2 topological insulators in the symplectic symmetry class.     

Phase-Modulated 2D Topological Physics in a One-Dimensional Ultracold System

We propose a one-dimensional optical lattice model to simulate and explore two-dimensional topological phases with ultracold atoms,considering the phases of the hopping strengths as an extra dimension.It is shown that the model exhibits nontrivial phases,and corresponding two chiral-edge states.Moreover,we demonstrate the connections between changes in the topological invariants and the Dirac points.Furthermore,the topological order detected by the particle pumping approach in cold atoms is also investigated.The results obtained here provide a feasible and flexible method of simulating and exploring high-dimensional topological phases in lowdimension systems via the controllable phase of the hopping strength.     

Failure of saturated ferromagnetism for the Hubbard model with two holes

We consider the Hubbard model on a finite set of sites with nonpositive hopping matrix elements and infinitely strong on-site repulsion. Nagaoka's theorem states that in this model the relative ground state in the sector with one unoccupied site is maximally ferromagnetic. We show that this phenomenon is a consequence of a combinatorial coincidence valid in the one-hole regime only. In the case of more than one hole there is no reason to expect maximally ferromagnetic ground states. We prove this claim for the case of two holes for models defined on a class of graphs which contains all tori that are not too small.     

Simulation and detection of the topological properties of a modulated Rice-Mele model in a one-dimensional circuit-QED lattice

Here, we propose a simple scheme to realize a one-dimensional (1D) modulated Rice-Mele model (RMM) and investigate its topological properties with a 1D circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) lattice. The system can be mapped into a Chern insulator model by introducing a period parameter. Interestingly and surprisingly, we found that the circuit-QED lattice system always exhibits topologically nontrivial phases if both the nearest-neighbor hopping strength between two resonators and the qubit-assisted on-site potentials are alternately changed in the direction of the lattice. The numerical results show that the topological phases can be obtained by introducing an additional modulation parameter and both the edge state and topological invariant can be unambiguously seen with the existence of decay and disorders, even with few resonators in the lattice.     

Topological characterization of quantum phase transitions in a spin-1/2 model

We have introduced a novel Majorana representation of S=1/2 spins using the Jordan-Wigner transformation and have shown that a generalized spin model of Kitaev defined on a brick-wall lattice is equivalent to a model of noninteracting Majorana fermions with Z2 gauge fields without redundant degrees of freedom. The quantum phase transitions of the system at zero temperature are found to be of topological type and can be characterized by nonlocal string order parameters (SOP). In appropriate dual representations, these SOP become local order parameters and the basic concept of Landau theory of continuous phase transition can be applied.     

A gauge field governing parallel transport along mixed states

At first, a short account is given of some basic notations and results on parallel transport along mixed states. A new connection form (gauge field) is introduced to give a geometric meaning to the concept of parallelity in the theory of density operators.     

Topological Insulators on the Ruby Lattice with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling

We investigate a tight-binding model of the ruby lattice with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We calculate the band structure of the lattice and evaluate the Z₂ topological indices. According to the Z₂ topological indices and the band structure, we present the phase diagrams of the lattice with different filling fractions. We find that topological insulators occur in some range of parameters at 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 5/6 filling fractions. We analyze and discuss the characteristics of these topological insulators and their edge states.     

Topological Insulators on the Ruby Lattice with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling

We investigate a tight-binding model of the ruby lattice with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We calculate the band structure of the lattice and evaluate the Z2 topological indices. According to the Z2 topological indices and the band structure, we present the phase diagrams of the lattice with different filling fractions. We find that topological insulators occur in some range of parameters at 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 and 5/6 filling fractions. We analyze and discuss the characteristics of these topological insulators and their edge states.     

Spin-liquid phase in a spin-1/2 quantum magnet on the kagome lattice

We study a model of hard-core bosons with short-range repulsive interactions at half filling on the kagome lattice. Using quantum Monte Carlo numerics, we find that this model shows a continuous superfluid-insulator quantum phase transition, with exponents z=1 and nu approximately 0.67(5). The insulator, I*, exhibits short-ranged density and bond correlations, topological order, and exponentially decaying spatial vison correlations, all of which point to a Z2 fractionalized phase. We estimate the vison gap in I* from the temperature dependence of the energy. Our results, together with the equivalence between hard-core bosons and S=1/2 spins, provide compelling evidence for a spin-liquid phase in an easy-axis spin-1/2 model with no special conservation laws.     

The classical su(2) invariance of the su(2) q -invariant XXZ spin chain

The XXZ spin-chain Hamiltonian has been constructed to be su(2) _q -invariant, but naively does not appear to be su(2)-invariant. However, using recently discovered deforming maps between representations of su(2) _q and corresponding representations of su(2), we prove a theorem which states that if a Hamiltonian is su(2) _q -invariant, it is also su(2)-invariant. The theorem generalizes to any quantized Lie algebra.     

On quantum holonomy for mixed states

There is a natural connection and parallel transport on the Hilbert tensor product (or, equivalently, the space of Hilbert-Schmidt operators), the elements of which represent density matrices in up to unitary operators. We postulate a time evolution equation, which leads to this connection after extracting a proper dynamical unitary phase. As an example, we compute the holonomy of a loop of temperature states for the spin in a rotating magnetic field.Supported by Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung in Österreich, Project No. P5588.