arXiv · 1404.2818
Microscopic Realization of 2-Dimensional Bosonic Topological Insulators
Abstract
It is well known that a Bosonic Mott insulator can be realized by condensing vortices of a bo- son condensate. Usually, a vortex becomes an anti-vortex (and vice-versa) under time reversal symmetry, and the condensation of vortices results in a trivial Mott insulator. However, if each vortex or anti-vortex interacts with a spin trapped at its core, the time reversal transformation of the composite vortex operator will contain an extra minus sign. It turns out that such a composite vortex condensed state is a bosonic topological insulator (BTI) with gapless boundary excitations protected by $U(1)\rtimes Z_2^T$ symmetry. We point out that in BTI, an external $π$ flux monodromy defect carries a Kramers doublet. We propose lattice model Hamiltonians to realize the BTI phase, which might be implemented in cold atom systems or spin-1 solid state systems.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Zheng-Xin Liu, Zheng-Cheng Gu, Xiao-Gang Wen. 2015-01-04. Microscopic Realization of 2-Dimensional Bosonic Topological Insulators. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.113.267206
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.