Groupoid Toric Codes

TL;DR

This paper generalizes the toric code to groupoid gauge theories, revealing models with fracton-like properties, extensive ground state degeneracy, and directional mobility restrictions of excitations, expanding the landscape of topological quantum codes.

Contribution

It introduces a novel construction of toric codes using groupoids, extending the framework to include fracton-like models with unique degeneracy and excitation mobility features.

Findings

Constructed models with fracton-like features

Found ground state degeneracy scales exponentially with lattice vertices

Identified directional mobility restrictions of excitations

Abstract

The toric code can be constructed as a gauge theory of finite groups on oriented two dimensional lattices. Here we construct analogous models with the gauge fields belonging to groupoids, which are categories where every morphism has an inverse. We show that a consistent system can be constructed for an arbitrary groupoid and analyze the simplest example that can be seen as the analog of the Abelian $\mathbb{Z}_2$ toric code. We find several exactly solvable models that have fracton-like features which include an extensive ground state degeneracy and excitations that are either immobile or have restricted mobility. Among the possibilities we study in detail the one where the ground state degeneracy scales as $2\times 2^{N_v}$, where $N_v$ is the number of vertices in the lattice. The origin of this degeneracy can be traced to loop operators supported on both contractible and non-contractible loops. In particular, different non-contractible loops, along the same direction on a torus, result in different ground states. This is an exponential increase in the number of logical qubits that can be encoded in this code. Moreover the face excitations in this system are deconfined, free to move without an energy cost along certain directions of the lattice, whereas in certain other directions their movement incurs an energy cost. This places a restriction on the types of loop operators that contribute to the ground state degeneracy. The vertex excitations are immobile. The results are also extended to the groupoid analogs of Abelian $\mathbb{Z}_N$ toric codes.