Videos

Anomalous Symmetry Fractionalization and surface topological order

Presenter
January 29, 2015
Abstract
Fiona Burnell University of Minnesota, Twin Cities I will discuss the relationship between certain symmetry-protected (SPT) phases in 3+1D and problems that can arise in symmetry-enriched topological (SET) phases in 2+1D. Specifically, the difficulty in realizing certain SET phases in 2 spatial dimensions stems from an obstruction to finding a consistent solution to the pentagon equation when the symmetry is gauged. I will focus on the particular example of an anomalous Z2×Z2 symmetry acting projectively on topological excitaitons with semionic statistics, and discuss the origin of the anomaly in the 2D system, and how it is resolved in 3D.