SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 2512.15868

Classifying one-dimensional Floquet phases through two-dimensional topological order

Abstract

Floquet systems display rich phenomena, such as time crystals, with many-body localisation (MBL) protecting the phases from heating. While several types of Floquet phases have been classified, a unified picture of Floquet MBL is still emerging. Static phases have been fruitfully studied via "symmetry topological field theory" (SymTFT), wherein the universal features of $G$-symmetric systems are elucidated by placing them on the boundary of a topological order of one dimension higher. In this work, we provide a SymTFT approach to classifying $G$-symmetric Floquet MBL phases in 1D, for $G$ a finite Abelian group with on-site unitary action. In the SymTFT, these 1D systems correspond to the boundaries of the quantum double associated to $G$, and the classification naturally arises from considering the Lagrangian subgroups and boundary excitations of the quantum double. The classification covers all known Floquet phases while uncovering others previously unexplored, along with bulk features of phases thought to have only boundary signatures. We refer to the latter phases as "dual" time crystals. For static phases, we show how anyons of the quantum double and (string) order parameters provide a natural and simple interpretation of known classification schemes. By extending our framework to the boundaries of twisted quantum doubles, we uncover a new time-crystalline phase with non-onsite symmetry, which cannot be obtained through local, symmetric Hamiltonian drives. We numerically demonstrate evidence for the absolute stability of this phase, and observe that for open boundary conditions it has greater stability to symmetric perturbations. We finally discuss perspectives on using programmable quantum devices to realise and probe the phases we discuss. Our results show that SymTFT provides a powerful approach to unifying phases and features of Floquet systems.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Campbell McLauchlan, Vedant Motamarri, Benjamin Béri. 2025-12-17. Classifying one-dimensional Floquet phases through two-dimensional topological order. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15868

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Competing Interlayer Loop Currents and Superconductivity in the Bilayer $t$-$J_\perp$-$V$ Model

The recent discovery of high-$T_c$ superconductivity in pressurized and thin-film bilayer nickelates, featuring a strong interlayer exchange coupling, and their potential similarities with cuprate superconductors, has made this a very active topic in condensed matter physics. In the present paper we study the strongly correlated one-orbital ($d_{x^2-y^2}$) bilayer $t$-$J_\perp$-$V$ model for nickelates, where $V$ denotes the Coulomb interactions, using a controlled large-$N$ expansion at and beyond the mean-field level. Focusing on the out-of-plane spin exchange interaction ($J_\perp$), we find that it triggers both out-of-plane $s$-wave superconductivity and an out-of-plane bond-order phase ($z$-BOP) instability. The $z$-BOP gives rise to a complex $z$-axis hopping dominated by its imaginary component, which drives out-of-plane currents and induces in-plane ones, spontaneously forming on the vertical plaquettes a loop-current state that breaks time-reversal symmetry. Competition between this loop-current phase and superconductivity yields a dome-shaped superconducting region, with optimal superconductivity occurring near the $z$-BOP quantum critical point. The resulting phase diagram features a pure loop-current region, a low-doping coexistence phase, a pure superconducting state at higher doping, and a correlated metallic state.

cond-mat.str-el

Optically induced metallic state with persistent monoclinic symmetry in NdNiO$_3$

Understanding whether electronic and structural order remain coupled under nonequilibrium conditions is a central challenge in correlated materials. Here, we simultaneously track metallicity and symmetry across the photoinduced insulator-to-metal transition in NdNiO$_3$ using time-resolved optical reflectivity and symmetry-sensitive second-harmonic generation. We find that metallic reflectivity emerges at significantly lower excitation fluence than restoration of the orthorhombic high-temperature symmetry. As a result, optical excitation stabilizes a metastable state that combines the reflectivity of the metallic phase with the monoclinic symmetry of the insulating phase, revealing an optically induced monoclinic metal. Only at substantially higher fluences does the symmetry fully recover to that of the high-temperature phase. These results demonstrate a nonequilibrium decoupling of metallicity and structural symmetry and establish simultaneous multiprobe spectroscopy as a powerful approach for identifying emergent phases in correlated materials.

cond-mat.str-el

Instabilities in self-consistent diagrammatic approaches and how to cure them

While self-consistent diagrammatic approaches are widely used to compute the physical properties of correlated quantum materials, their applicability may get severely hindered precisely in the parameter regions, where the most exciting physics is observed. One of the major issues, referred to as "misleading convergence", is the tendency of iterative schemes to converge to unphysical fixed points for intermediate-to-strong electronic interactions, regardless of numerical accuracy of the computation. Here, we explicitly verify that the origin of this problem in several established self-consistent many-electron approaches, defined in the general diagrammatic framework of the boson-exchange formalism, resides exclusively in the stability condition of the respective iteration schemes, and not in an intrinsic breakdown of their self-consistent diagrammatic description. This insight enables a simple and general remedy, as recently proposed in Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 016502 (2026): The redefinition of the iterative procedure, by inverting the unstable eigendirections of the Jacobian associated to the fixed point of the self-consistent algorithm. We illustrate the successful outcome of this procedure by means of systematic calculations performed on testbed, exactly solvable, models. Our results demonstrate that the physical fixed point of the diagrammatic schemes we considered can be stabilized, de facto, across the entire parameter range, including the most challenging nonperturbative/strong-coupling regimes.

cond-mat.str-el