# Spectral gaps for the Two-Species Product Vacua and Boundary States models on the $d$-dimensional lattice

## TL;DR

This paper investigates spectral gaps in two-species PVBS quantum spin models on lattices, establishing conditions for the existence or absence of a spectral gap based on single-species subspace properties.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of spectral gaps in two-species PVBS models, showing how the gap behavior depends on single-species subspace properties and introducing new insights into gapped quantum spin systems.

## Key findings

- Positive spectral gap when both single-species subspaces are gapped
- Gapless if either single-species subspace is gapless
- Adding a new species does not induce new gapless phases

## Abstract

We study the two-species Product Vacua and Boundary States (PVBS) models on the integer lattice $\mathbb{Z}^d$ and prove the existence and non-existence of a spectral gap for all choices of parameters. The PVBS models are spin-1 quantum spin systems which are translation-invariant, frustration-free, and composed of nearest-neighbor non-commuting interactions with both an exclusion property and an interchange interaction between particle species. These models serve as possible representatives of families of automorphically equivalent gapped quantum spin-1 systems on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. The main result is that the two-species PVBS Hamiltonians have a positive spectral gap when gapped on both of the single-species subspaces and are gapless if gapless on either single-species subspace. The addition of a new particle species does not create any new gapless phases.