2010/12/31 by Sébastien Dusuel, S. Dusuel, Michael Kamfor +7 · 211 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Combinatorics #Condensed matter physics #Critical exponent #Ising model #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Perturbation (astronomy) #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Renormalization group #Statistical physics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Topological entropy in physics #Topological order #Topological quantum number #Topology (electrical circuits) #Toric code #Universality (dynamical systems) #cond-mat.stat-mech #hep-lat #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.106.107203
published in Physical Review Letters 106(10), 107203 (American Physical Society) · 5 pages, 3 figures, published version
openalex publication_date 2011/03/08 · arxiv created 2011/03/09 · arxiv updated 2011/03/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate the stability of the topological phase of the toric code model in the presence of a uniform magnetic field by means of variational and high-order series expansion approaches. We find that when this perturbation is strong enough, the system undergoes a topological phase transition whose first- or second-order nature depends on the field orientation. When this transition is of second order, it is in the Ising universality class except for a special line on which the critical exponent driving the closure of the gap varies continuously, unveiling a new topological universality class.