I will present a density-matrix renormalization group
(DMRG) study of the S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice to
identify the conjectured spin liquid ground state. Exploiting SU(2) spin
symmetry, which allows us to keep up to 16,000 DMRG states, we consider
cylinders with circumferences up to 17 lattice spacings and find a spin liquid
ground state with an estimated per site energy of -0.4386(5), a spin gap of
0.13(1), very short-range decay in spin, dimer and chiral correlation functions
and finite topological entanglement consistent with the logarithm of 2, ruling
out gapless, chiral or non-topological spin liquids. All this would provide
strong evidence for a gapped topological Z_2 spin liquid.
We construct in the K matrix formalism concrete examples
of symmetry enriched topological phases, namely intrinsically topological
phases with global symmetries. We focus on the Abelian and non-chiral
topological phases and demonstrate by our examples how the interplay between
the global symmetry and the fusion algebra of the anyons of a topologically
ordered system determines the existence of gapless edge modes protected by the
symmetry and that a (quasi)-group structure can be defined among these phases.
Our examples include phases that display charge fractionalization and more
exotic non-local anyon exchange under global symmetry that correspond to
general group extensions of the global symmetry group.
The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), which
has proved so successful in one dimension, has been making the push into higher
dimensions, with the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effect an important target.
I'll briefly explain how the infinite DMRG algorithm can be adapted to find the
degenerate ground states of a microscopic FQH Hamiltonian on an infinitely long
cylinder, then focus on two applications. To characterize the topological order
of the phase, I'll show that the bipartite entanglement spectrum of the ground
state is sufficient to determine the quasiparticle charges, topological spins,
quantum dimensions, chiral central charge, and Hall viscosity of the phase.
Then I will show how to introduce localized quasiparticles of fixed topological
charge. By pinning a pair of quasiparticles and dragging them into contact, we
can directly measure the force curve of their interaction.
We have used a recently proposed quantum Monte Carlo
algorithm [1] to study spinons (emergent S = 1/2 excitations) in 2D
Resonating-Valence-Bond (RVB) spin liquids and in a J-Q model hosting a Neel –
Valence Bond Solid (VBS) phase transition at zero temperature [2]. We confirm
that spinons are well defined quasi-particles with finite intrinsic size in the
RVB spin liquid. The distance distribution between two spinons shows signatures
of deconfinement.
However, at the Neel–VBS transition, we found that the
size of a single spinon is significantly greater than the bound-state in VBS,
which indicates that spinons are “soft” and shrink when bound state is formed.
Both spinon size and confinement length diverge as the critical point is
approached. We have also compared spinon statistics in J-Q model with bilayer
Heisenberg model and 1D spin chain. We conclude that the spinon deconfinement
is marginal in the lowest-energy state in the spin-1 sector, due to very weak
attractive spinon interactions. Deconfinement in the vicinity of the critical
point should occur at higher energies.