Berry-phase description of Topological Crystalline Insulators

We study a class of translational-invariant insulators with discrete rotational symmetry. These insulators have no spin-orbit coupling, and in some cases have no time-reversal symmetry as well, i.e., the relevant symmetries are purely crystalline. Nevertheless, topological phases exist which are distinguished by their robust surface modes. Like many well-known topological phases, their band topology is unveiled by the crystalline analog of Berry phases, i.e., parallel transport across certain non-contractible loops in the Brillouin zone. We also identify certain topological phases without any robust surface modes -- they are uniquely distinguished by parallel transport along bent loops, whose shapes are determined by the symmetry group. Our findings have experimental implications in cold-atom systems, where the crystalline Berry phase has been directly measured.Comment: Latest version is accepted to PR

Correlation Lengths and Topological Entanglement Entropies of Unitary and Non-Unitary Fractional Quantum Hall Wavefunctions

Using the newly developed Matrix Product State (MPS) formalism for non-abelian Fractional Quantum Hall (FQH) states, we address the question of whether a FQH trial wave function written as a correlation function in a non-unitary Conformal Field Theory (CFT) can describe the bulk of a gapped FQH phase. We show that the non-unitary Gaffnian state exhibits clear signatures of a pathological behavior. As a benchmark we compute the correlation length of Moore-Read state and find it to be finite in the thermodynamic limit. By contrast, the Gaffnian state has infinite correlation length in (at least) the non-Abelian sector, and is therefore gapless. We also compute the topological entanglement entropy of several non-abelian states with and without quasiholes. For the first time in FQH the results are in excellent agreement in all topological sectors with the CFT prediction for unitary states. For the non-unitary Gaffnian state in finite size systems, the topological entanglement entropy seems to behave like that of the Composite Fermion Jain state at equal filling.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, and supplementary material. Published versio

D-Algebra Structure of Topological Insulators

In the quantum Hall effect, the density operators at different wave-vectors generally do not commute and give rise to the Girvin MacDonald Plazmann (GMP) algebra with important consequences such as ground-state center of mass degeneracy at fractional filling fraction, and W_{1 + \infty} symmetry of the filled Landau levels. We show that the natural generalization of the GMP algebra to higher dimensional topological insulators involves the concept of a D-algebra formed by using the fully anti-symmetric tensor in D-dimensions. For insulators in even dimensional space, the D-algebra is isotropic and closes for the case of constant non-Abelian F(k) ^ F(k) ... ^ F(k) connection (D-Berry curvature), and its structure factors are proportional to the D/2-Chern number. In odd dimensions, the algebra is not isotropic, contains the weak topological insulator index (layers of the topological insulator in one less dimension) and does not contain the Chern-Simons \theta form (F ^ A - 2/3 A ^ A ^ A in 3 dimensions). The Chern-Simons form appears in a certain combination of the parallel transport and simple translation operator which is not an algebra. The possible relation to D-dimensional volume preserving diffeomorphisms and parallel transport of extended objects is also discussed.Comment: 5 page

Holonomic Quantum Computing Based on the Stark Effect

We propose a spin manipulation technique based entirely on electric fields applied to acceptor states in $p$-type semiconductors with spin-orbit coupling. While interesting in its own right, the technique can also be used to implement fault-resilient holonomic quantum computing. We explicitly compute adiabatic transformation matrix (holonomy) of the degenerate states and comment on the feasibility of the scheme as an experimental technique.Comment: 5 page

Extracting Excitations From Model State Entanglement

We extend the concept of entanglement spectrum from the geometrical to the particle bipartite partition. We apply this to several Fractional Quantum Hall (FQH) wavefunctions on both sphere and torus geometries to show that this new type of entanglement spectra completely reveals the physics of bulk quasihole excitations. While this is easily understood when a local Hamiltonian for the model state exists, we show that the quasiholes wavefunctions are encoded within the model state even when such a Hamiltonian is not known. As a nontrivial example, we look at Jain's composite fermion states and obtain their quasiholes directly from the model state wavefunction. We reach similar conclusions for wavefunctions described by Jack polynomials.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, updated versio

Wilson-Loop Characterization of Inversion-Symmetric Topological Insulators

The ground state of translationally-invariant insulators comprise bands which can assume topologically distinct structures. There are few known examples where this distinction is enforced by a point-group symmetry alone. In this paper we show that 1D and 2D insulators with the simplest point-group symmetry - inversion - have a $Z^{\geq}$ classification. In 2D, we identify a relative winding number that is solely protected by inversion symmetry. By analysis of Berry phases, we show that this invariant has similarities with the first Chern class (of time-reversal breaking insulators), but is more closely analogous to the $Z_2$ invariant (of time-reversal invariant insulators). Implications of our work are discussed in holonomy, the geometric-phase theory of polarization, the theory of maximally-localized Wannier functions, and in the entanglement spectrum.Comment: The updated version is accepted in Physical Review

Matrix Product States for Trial Quantum Hall States

We obtain an exact matrix-product-state (MPS) representation of a large series of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states in various geometries of genus 0. The states in question include all paired k=2 Jack polynomials, such as the Moore-Read and Gaffnian states, as well as the Read-Rezayi k=3 state. We also outline the procedures through which the MPS of other model FQH states can be obtained, provided their wavefunction can be written as a correlator in a 1+1 conformal field theory (CFT). The auxiliary Hilbert space of the MPS, which gives the counting of the entanglement spectrum, is then simply the Hilbert space of the underlying CFT. This formalism enlightens the link between entanglement spectrum and edge modes. Properties of model wavefunctions such as the thin-torus root partitions and squeezing are recast in the MPS form, and numerical benchmarks for the accuracy of the new MPS prescription in various geometries are provided.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, published versio