Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions

Recently, it was realized that anomalies can be completely classified by topological orders, symmetry protected topological orders, and symmetry enriched topological orders in one higher dimension. The anomalies that people used to study are invertible anomalies that correspond to invertible topolog...

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Main Authors: Wenjie Ji, Xiao-Gang Wen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2019-10-01
Series:Physical Review Research
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033054
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author Wenjie Ji
Xiao-Gang Wen
author_facet Wenjie Ji
Xiao-Gang Wen
author_sort Wenjie Ji
collection DOAJ
description Recently, it was realized that anomalies can be completely classified by topological orders, symmetry protected topological orders, and symmetry enriched topological orders in one higher dimension. The anomalies that people used to study are invertible anomalies that correspond to invertible topological orders and/or symmetry protected topological orders in one higher dimension. In this paper, we introduce a notion of noninvertible anomaly, which describes the boundary of generic topological order. It is characterized by two features. First, a theory with noninvertible anomaly has a multicomponent partition function. Second, under the mapping class group transformation of space-time, the vector of partition functions transform covariantly. In fact, the anomalous partition functions transform in the same way as the degenerate ground states of the corresponding topological order in one higher dimension. This general theory of noninvertible anomaly may have wide applications. As an example, we show that the irreducible gapless boundary of 2+1D double-semion topological order must have central charge c=c[over ¯]>25/28.
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spelling doaj.art-9dd685c714ca46fb8f315f944833fe722024-04-12T16:46:27ZengAmerican Physical SocietyPhysical Review Research2643-15642019-10-011303305410.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033054Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functionsWenjie JiXiao-Gang WenRecently, it was realized that anomalies can be completely classified by topological orders, symmetry protected topological orders, and symmetry enriched topological orders in one higher dimension. The anomalies that people used to study are invertible anomalies that correspond to invertible topological orders and/or symmetry protected topological orders in one higher dimension. In this paper, we introduce a notion of noninvertible anomaly, which describes the boundary of generic topological order. It is characterized by two features. First, a theory with noninvertible anomaly has a multicomponent partition function. Second, under the mapping class group transformation of space-time, the vector of partition functions transform covariantly. In fact, the anomalous partition functions transform in the same way as the degenerate ground states of the corresponding topological order in one higher dimension. This general theory of noninvertible anomaly may have wide applications. As an example, we show that the irreducible gapless boundary of 2+1D double-semion topological order must have central charge c=c[over ¯]>25/28.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033054
spellingShingle Wenjie Ji
Xiao-Gang Wen
Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
Physical Review Research
title Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
title_full Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
title_fullStr Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
title_full_unstemmed Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
title_short Noninvertible anomalies and mapping-class-group transformation of anomalous partition functions
title_sort noninvertible anomalies and mapping class group transformation of anomalous partition functions
url http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033054
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AT xiaogangwen noninvertibleanomaliesandmappingclassgrouptransformationofanomalouspartitionfunctions