Bott-Kitaev Periodic Table and the Diagonal Map

Building on the 10-way symmetry classification of disordered fermions, the authors have recently given a homotopy-theoretic proof of Kitaev's "Periodic Table" for topological insulators and superconductors. The present paper offers an introduction to the physical setting and the mathematical model used. Basic to the proof is the so-called Diagonal Map, a natural transformation akin to the Bott map of algebraic topology, which increases by one unit both the momentum-space dimension and the symmetry index of translation-invariant ground states of gapped free-fermion systems. This mapping is illustrated here with a few examples of interest.Comment: Based on a talk delivered by the senior author at the Nobel Symposium on "New Forms of Matter: Topological Insulators and Superconductors" (Stockholm, June 13-15, 2014

Pure scaling operators at the integer quantum Hall plateau transition

Stationary wave functions at the transition between plateaus of the integer quantum Hall effect are known to exhibit multi-fractal statistics. Here we explore this critical behavior for the case of scattering states of the Chalker-Coddington model with point contacts. We argue that moments formed from the wave amplitudes of critical scattering states decay as pure powers of the distance between the points of contact and observation. These moments in the continuum limit are proposed to be correlations functions of primary fields of an underlying conformal field theory. We check this proposal numerically by finite-size scaling. We also verify the CFT prediction for a 3-point function involving two primary fields.Comment: Published version, 4 pages, 3 figure

Energy correlations for a random matrix model of disordered bosons

Linearizing the Heisenberg equations of motion around the ground state of an interacting quantum many-body system, one gets a time-evolution generator in the positive cone of a real symplectic Lie algebra. The presence of disorder in the physical system determines a probability measure with support on this cone. The present paper analyzes a discrete family of such measures of exponential type, and does so in an attempt to capture, by a simple random matrix model, some generic statistical features of the characteristic frequencies of disordered bosonic quasi-particle systems. The level correlation functions of the said measures are shown to be those of a determinantal process, and the kernel of the process is expressed as a sum of bi-orthogonal polynomials. While the correlations in the bulk scaling limit are in accord with sine-kernel or GUE universality, at the low-frequency end of the spectrum an unusual type of scaling behavior is found.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, references adde

A conjecture on Hubbard-Stratonovich transformations for the Pruisken-Sch\"afer parameterisations of real hyperbolic domains

Rigorous justification of the Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation for the Pruisken-Sch\"afer type of parameterisations of real hyperbolic O(m,n)-invariant domains remains a challenging problem. We show that a naive choice of the volume element invalidates the transformation, and put forward a conjecture about the correct form which ensures the desired structure. The conjecture is supported by complete analytic solution of the problem for groups O(1,1) and O(2,1), and by a method combining analytical calculations with a simple numerical evaluation of a two-dimensional integral in the case of the group O(2,2).Comment: Published versio

Lattice Dirac fermions in a non-Abelian random gauge potential: Many flavors, chiral symmetry restoration and localization

In the previous paper we studied Dirac fermions in a non-Abelian random vector potential by using lattice supersymmetry. By the lattice regularization, the system of disordered Dirac fermions is defined without any ambiguities. We showed there that at strong-disorder limit correlation function of the fermion local density of states decays algebraically at the band center. In this paper, we shall reexamine the multi-flavor or multi-species case rather in detail and argue that the correlator at the band center decays {\em exponentially} for the case of a {\em large} number of flavors. This means that a delocalization-localization phase transition occurs as the number of flavors is increased. This discussion is supported by the recent numerical studies on multi-flavor QCD at the strong-coupling limit, which shows that the phase structure of QCD drastically changes depending on the number of flavors. The above behaviour of the correlator of the random Dirac fermions is closely related with how the chiral symmetry is realized in QCD.Comment: Version appears in Mod.Phys.Lett.A17(2002)135