Electromagnetic and gravitational responses and anomalies in topological insulators and superconductors

TL;DR

This paper explores electromagnetic and gravitational responses in topological insulators and superconductors, revealing new thermal and dipole effects, and demonstrating the robustness of their topological classification against interactions across various dimensions.

Contribution

It introduces novel thermal and dipole response phenomena in topological phases and establishes the interaction insensitivity of their classification via anomaly-based effective field theories.

Findings

Thermal responses can detect topological superconductors without spin rotation symmetry.

Surface currents are induced by temperature gradients in certain topological phases.

Topological classifications are robust to interactions, governed by anomalies.

Abstract

One of the defining properties of the conventional three-dimensional ("$\mathbb{Z}_2$-", or "spin-orbit"-) topological insulator is its characteristic magnetoelectric effect, as described by axion electrodynamics. In this paper, we discuss an analogue of such a magnetoelectric effect in the thermal (or gravitational) and the magnetic dipole responses in all symmetry classes which admit topologically non-trivial insulators or superconductors to exist in three dimensions. In particular, for topological superconductors (or superfluids) with time-reversal symmetry which lack SU(2) spin rotation symmetry (e.g. due to spin-orbit interactions), such as the B phase of $^3$He, the thermal response is the only probe which can detect the non-trivial topological character through transport. We show that, for such topological superconductors, applying a temperature gradient produces a thermal- (or mass-) surface current perpendicular to the thermal gradient. Such charge, thermal, or magnetic dipole responses provide a definition of topological insulators and superconductors beyond the single-particle picture. Moreover we find, for a significant part of the 'ten-fold' list of topological insulators found in previous work in the absence of interactions, that in general dimensions the effective field theory describing the space-time responses is governed by a field theory anomaly. Since anomalies are known to be insensitive to whether the underlying fermions are interacting or not, this shows that the classification of these topological insulators is robust to adiabatic deformations by interparticle interactions in general dimensionality. In particular, this applies to symmetry classes DIII, CI, and AIII in three spatial dimensions, and to symmetry classes D and C in two spatial dimensions.