Emergent XY* transition driven by symmetry fractionalization and anyon condensation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how symmetry fractionalization and anyon condensation in a $ ext{Z}_2$ topological phase lead to emergent XY* transitions, revealing complex phase diagrams and critical behaviors through numerical and theoretical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed study of anyon condensation in a $ ext{Z}_2$ topological order with Ising perturbations, identifying emergent XY* criticality and novel symmetry-breaking phases.

Findings

Identification of XY* transitions ending at a critical point.

Numerical evidence of two distinct symmetry-breaking patterns.

Large critical exponents and lines of weakly first-order transitions.

Abstract

Anyons in a topologically ordered phase can carry fractional quantum numbers with respect to the symmetry group of the considered system, one example being the fractional charge of the quasiparticles in the fractional quantum Hall effect. When such symmetry-fractionalized anyons condense, the resulting phase must spontaneously break the symmetry and display a local order parameter. In this paper, we study the phase diagram and anyon condensation transitions of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological order perturbed by Ising interactions in the Toric Code. The interplay between the global Ising symmetry and the lattice space group symmetries results in a non-trivial symmetry fractionalization class for the anyons, and is shown to lead to two characteristically different symmetry-broken phases. To understand the anyon condensation transitions, we use the recently introduced critical torus energy spectrum technique to identify a line of emergent 2+1D XY* transitions ending at a fine-tuned (Ising$^2$)* critical point. We provide numerical evidence for the occurrence of two symmetry breaking patterns predicted by the specific symmetry fractionalization class of the anyons in the explored phase diagram. In combination with quantum Monte Carlo simulations we measure unusually large critical exponents for the scaling of the correlation function at the anyon condensation transitions, and we identify lines of (weakly) first order transitions in the phase diagram. As an important result, we discuss the phase diagram of a resulting 2+1D Ashkin-Teller model, where we demonstrate that torus spectroscopy is capable of identifying emergent XY/O(2) critical behaviour, thereby solving some longstanding open questions in the domain of the 3D Ashkin-Teller models. To establish the generality of our results, we propose a field theoretical description which is in excellent agreement with the numerical results.