Gapped boundary phases of topological insulators via weak coupling

The standard boundary state of a topological insulator in 3 + 1 dimensions has gapless charged fermions. We present model systems that reproduce this standard gapless boundary state in one phase, but also have gapped phases with topological order. Our models are weakly coupled and all the dynamics i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inProgress of theoretical and experimental physics Vol. 2016; no. 12; p. 12
Main Authors Seiberg, Nathan, Witten, Edward
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Oxford University Press 01.12.2016
Physical Society of Japan
Subjects
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Other topics
Quantization and formalism
Symmetries and anomalies
Vortices
B31
I68
I62
B04
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Summary:The standard boundary state of a topological insulator in 3 + 1 dimensions has gapless charged fermions. We present model systems that reproduce this standard gapless boundary state in one phase, but also have gapped phases with topological order. Our models are weakly coupled and all the dynamics is explicit. We rederive some known boundary states of topological insulators and construct new ones. Consistency with the standard spin/charge relation of condensed matter physics places a nontrivial constraint on models.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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content type line 14
sc0009988
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
ISSN:2050-3911
2050-3911
DOI:10.1093/ptep/ptw083