Towards a complete classification of nonchiral topological phases in two-dimensional fermion systems

In recent years, fermionic topological phases of quantum matter has attracted a lot of attention. In a pioneer work by Gu, Wang, and Wen, the concept of equivalence classes of fermionic local unitary (FLU) transformations was proposed to systematically understand nonchiral topological phases in 2D fermion systems and an incomplete classification was obtained. On the other hand, the physical picture of fermion condensation and its corresponding super pivotal categories give rise to a generic mathematical framework to describe fermionic topological phases of quantum matter. In particular, it has been pointed out that in certain fermionic topological phases, there exists the so-called q-type anyon excitations, which have no analogues in bosonic theories. In this paper, we generalize the Gu, Wang, and Wen construction to include those fermionic topological phases with q-type anyon excitations. We argue that all nonchiral fermionic topological phases in 2+1D are characterized by a set of tensors (N-k(ij), F-k(ij), F-kln,chi delta(ijm, alpha beta), n(i), d(i)), which satisfy a set of nonlinear algebraic equations parameterized by phase factors Xi(ijm, alpha beta)(kl) and Xi(ij)(kln,chi delta). Moreover, consistency conditions among algebraic equations give rise to additional constraints on these phase factors, which allow us to construct a topological invariant partition for an arbitrary triangulation of 3D spin manifold. Finally, several examples with q-type anyon excitations are discussed, including the fermionic topological phase from Tambara-Yamagami category for Z(2N), which can be regarded as the Z(2N) parafermion generalization of Ising fermionic topological phase.

Automated summary

This paper studies fermionic topological phases with q-type anyon excitations and generalizes the construction by Gu, Wang, and Wen. By using a set of nonlinear algebraic equations and constraints on phase factors, we are able to construct a topological invariant partition for 3D spin manifolds.