Topological phase

1. Aug 9, 2012

complement

Hi there!

Can anybody tell me, if generically any system, which is solely described by a topological field theory, resides in a topological phase? I cant find any clear notion of topological phase. Only topological phase of matter, but I mean any kind of system.

2. Aug 9, 2012

atyy

Levin gives a definition in this talk. He defines a topological phase as being gapped, having a ground state degeneracy that depends only on the topology of the manifold that the system is placed on, and has fractional statistics.

Similar definitions are given by Nayak et al (section III.A) and Hansson et al (section B of the introduction).

Moore's notes contain a different definition of topological phase ('Thouless phases'), which he distinguishes from the definition of topological phase ('Wen-type phases') used by Levin, Nayak and Hansson.

Last edited: Aug 9, 2012
3. Aug 10, 2012

Blackforest

Very interesting. Do you know some references explaining the derivation of the CS Lagrangian (e.g. wenphases.pdf, page 1, (5))?

4. Aug 10, 2012

Physics Monkey

At what level would you like the explanation?

5. Aug 10, 2012