Lecturer: Dr. Zohar Ringel
Affiliation: Department of Physics,
University of Oxford
Abstract:
In the past few years many new symmetry
protected topological phases (SPTs) of spin
systems have been discovered theoretically.
The main tool by which these were
analyzed-- the group cohomology approach,
shows little if any connection to more
physical approaches used for handling the
fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE)
which are based on Landau levels and their
connection with conformal field theories
(CFTs).
In this talk I'll propose a method for
analyzing groundstate wavefunctions of
SPTs using a correspondence with
conformal field theories (CFTs) and
integrable lattice models. This method is a
direct generalization of the CFT approach to
the FQHE. In its kernel lays an intriguing
correspondence between group cohomology
cocycles and critical lattice models. Besides
providing a unifying picture for two
seemingly distinct phenomena, I discuss
several new results which can be obtained
using this approach to SPTs.