Chiral Central Charge from a Single Bulk Wave Function
A (2+1)-dimensional gapped quantum many-body system can have a topologically protected energy current at its edge. The magnitude of this current is determined entirely by the temperature and the chiral central charge, a quantity associated with the effective field theory of the edge. We derive a for...
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Published in | Physical review letters Vol. 128; no. 17; p. 176402 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
29.04.2022
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Online Access | Get more information |
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Summary: | A (2+1)-dimensional gapped quantum many-body system can have a topologically protected energy current at its edge. The magnitude of this current is determined entirely by the temperature and the chiral central charge, a quantity associated with the effective field theory of the edge. We derive a formula for the chiral central charge that, akin to the topological entanglement entropy, is completely determined by the many-body ground state wave function in the bulk. According to our formula, nonzero chiral central charge gives rise to a topological obstruction that prevents the ground state wave function from being real valued in any local product basis. |
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ISSN: | 1079-7114 |
DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.176402 |