Symmetry Protected Topological Phases, Anomalies, and Cobordisms: Beyond Group Cohomology

We systematically study Lorentz symmetry extensions in quantum field theories (QFTs) and their 't Hooft anomalies via cobordism. The total symmetry $G'$ can be expressed in terms of the extension of Lorentz symmetry $G_L$ by an internal global symmetry $G$ as $1 \to G \to G' \to G_L \to 1$. By enumerating all possible $G_L$ and symmetry extensions, other than the familiar SO/Spin/O/Pin$^{\pm}$ groups, we introduce a new EPin group (in contrast to DPin), and provide natural ph...

The challenge of identifying symmetry-protected topological states (SPTs) is due to their lack of symmetry-breaking order parameters and intrinsic topological orders. For this reason, it is impossible to formulate SPTs under Ginzburg-Landau theory or probe SPTs via fractionalized bulk excitations and topology-dependent ground state degeneracy. However, the partition functions from path integrals with various symmetry twists are the universal SPT invariants defining topologica...

Classification and construction of symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting boson and fermion systems have become a fascinating theoretical direction in recent years. It has been shown that the (generalized) group cohomology theory or cobordism theory can give rise to a complete classification of SPT phases in interacting boson/spin systems. Nevertheless, the construction and classification of SPT phases in interacting fermion systems are much more complicat...

We formulate a family of spin Topological Quantum Filed Theories (spin-TQFTs) as fermionic generalization of bosonic Dijkgraaf-Witten TQFTs. They are obtained by gauging $G$-equivariant invertible spin-TQFTs, or, in physics language, gauging the interacting fermionic Symmetry Protected Topological states (SPTs) with a finite group $G$ symmetry. We use the fact that the latter are classified by Pontryagin duals to spin-bordism groups of the classifying space $BG$. We also cons...

It has been shown that the L-type bosonic symmetry-protected-trivial (SPT) phases with pure gauge anomalous boundary can all be realized via non-linear $\sigma$-models (NL$\sigma$Ms) of the symmetry group $G$ with various topological terms. Those SPT phases (called the pure SPT phases) can be classified by group cohomology ${\cal H}^d(G,\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z})$. But there are also SPT phases with mixed gauge-gravity anomalous boundary (which will be called the mixed SPT phases...

Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases of bosons in $d$ spatial dimensions have been characterized by the action of the protecting global symmetry $G$ on their boundary. The symmetry acts on the boundary in a way that would be impossible to realize in a purely $d-1$ dimensional system i.e., without the bulk. This is often formalized by saying the $G$ symmetry is anomalous when the boundary theory is gauged. Simultaneously gauging the symmetry on the boundary and in the b...

Symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases are gapped short-range-entangled quantum phases with a symmetry G. They can all be smoothly connected to the same trivial product state if we break the symmetry. The Haldane phase of spin-1 chain is the first example of SPT phase which is protected by SO(3) spin rotation symmetry. The topological insulator is another exam- ple of SPT phase which is protected by U(1) and time reversal symmetries. It has been shown that free fermion S...

It is demonstrated by explicit construction that three-dimensional bosonic crystalline symmetry protected topological (cSPT) phases are classified by $H_{\phi}^{5}(G;\mathbb{Z})\oplus H_{\phi}^{1}(G;\mathbb{Z})$ for all 230 space groups $G$, where $H^n_\phi(G;\mathbb{Z})$ denotes the $n$th twisted group cohomology of $G$ with $\mathbb{Z}$ coefficients, and $\phi$ indicates that $g\in G$ acts non-trivially on coefficients by sending them to their inverses if $g$ reverses space...

This study targets quantum phases which are characterized by topological properties and no associated with the symmetry breaking. We concern ourselves primarily with the transitions among these quantum phases. This type of quantum phase transition was investigated by $G$-cobordism in unified framework. This framework provides a useful method to investigate a new quantum phase.

We classify a number of symmetry protected phases using Freed-Hopkins' homotopy theoretic classification. Along the way we compute the low-dimensional homotopy groups of a number of novel cobordism spectra.