Matrix product operators for symmetry-protected topological phases: Gauging and edge theories

TL;DR

This paper introduces a framework using matrix product operators to classify symmetry-protected topological phases in PEPS, connecting edge theories, gauging procedures, and phase transitions.

Contribution

It develops a unified MPO-based formalism for describing and classifying SPT phases, including perturbations and gauging, extending previous fixed-point models.

Findings

Classifies SPT phases via MPO obstructions

Demonstrates gauging leads to topological order

Accommodates phase transitions between SPT phases

Abstract

Projected entangled pair states (PEPS) provide a natural ansatz for the ground states of gapped, local Hamiltonians in which global characteristics of a quantum state are encoded in properties of local tensors. We develop a framework to describe on-site symmetries, as occurring in systems exhibiting symmetry-protected topological (SPT) quantum order, in terms of virtual symmetries of the local tensors expressed as a set of matrix product operators (MPOs) labeled by distinct group elements. These MPOs describe the possibly anomalous symmetry of the edge theory, whose local degrees of freedom are concretely identified in a PEPS. A classification of SPT phases is obtained by studying the obstructions to continuously deforming one set of MPOs into another, recovering the results derived for fixed-point models [X. Chen et al., Phys. Rev. B 87, 155114 (2013)]. Our formalism accommodates perturbations away from fixed point models, opening the possibility of studying phase transitions between different SPT phases. We also demonstrate that applying the recently developed quantum state gauging procedure to a SPT PEPS yields a PEPS with topological order determined by the initial symmetry MPOs. The MPO framework thus unifies the different approaches to classifying SPT phases, via fixed-points models, boundary anomalies, or gauging the symmetry, into the single problem of classifying inequivalent sets of matrix product operator symmetries that are defined purely in terms of a PEPS.