Deep learning of topological phase transitions from entanglement aspects: An unsupervised way

TL;DR

This paper introduces an unsupervised machine learning approach that uses entanglement-based features to identify and refine topological phase boundaries in quantum systems without prior phase knowledge.

Contribution

It extends previous work by applying an unsupervised method to topological phases, eliminating the need for labeled data or prior phase information.

Findings

Successfully identifies topological and non-topological phases

Reproduces sharp phase boundaries similar to previous methods

Does not require prior knowledge of phase number

Abstract

Machine learning techniques have been shown to be effective to recognize different phases of matter and produce phase diagrams in the parameter space interested, while they usually require prior labeled data to perform well. Here, we propose a machine learning procedure, mainly in an unsupervised manner, which can first identify topological/non-topological phases and then refine the locations of phase boundaries. By following this proposed procedure, we expand our previous work on the one-dimensional $p$-wave superconductor [Phys. Rev. B 102, 054512 (2020)] and further on the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, with an emphasis on using the quantum entanglement-based quantities as the input features. We find that our method not only reproduces similar results to the previous work with sharp phase boundaries but importantly it also does not rely on prior knowledge of the phase space, e.g., the number of phases present. We conclude with a few remarks about its potential, limitations, and explainabilities.