Defects and textures in topological orders with broken continuous symmetries

Abstract

We study the interplay of classical and quantum topology, in two-dimensional topological orders which spontaneously break continuous symmetries. In particular, we present a framework that addresses how the topologically ordered quantum ground states affect the universal properties of topological point defects and textures in the classical long range order. Mathematically, based on the long exact sequence of homotopy groups, we show how to classify universal properties of point defects and textures using the inflation-restriction exact sequence. We illustrate the framework using many examples, where point defects can permute anyons in the topological orders and/or exhibit a “defect fractionalization” phenomenon.

Reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.13207