2015/06/17 by Emilio Cobanera, E. Cobanera, Gerardo Ortíz +1 · 14 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Combinatorics #Duality (order theory) #Fermion #Geometry #Homogeneous space #MAJORANA #Mathematics #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Superconductivity #Theoretical physics #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.92.155125
published in Physical Review B 92(15) (American Physical Society) · 18 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2015/06/17 · openalex publication_date 2015/10/14 · arxiv updated 2015/11/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Systems of free fermions are classified by symmetry, space dimensionality, and topological properties described by K homology. Those systems belonging to different classes are inequivalent. In contrast, we show that by taking a many-body/Fock-space viewpoint it becomes possible to establish equivalences of topological insulators and superconductors in terms of duality transformations. These mappings connect topologically inequivalent systems of fermions, jumping across entries in existent classification tables, because of the phenomenon of symmetry transmutation by which a symmetry and its dual partner have identical algebraic properties but very different physical interpretations. To constrain our study to established classification tables, we define and characterize mathematically Gaussian dualities as dualities mapping free fermions to free fermions (and interacting to interacting). By introducing a large, flexible class of Gaussian dualities we show that any insulator is dual to a superconductor, and that fermionic edge modes are dual to Majorana edge modes, that is, the Gaussian dualities of this paper preserve the bulk-boundary correspondence. Transmutation of relevant symmetries, particle number, translation, and time reversal is also investigated in detail. As illustrative examples, we show the duality equivalence of the dimerized Peierls chain and the Majorana chain of Kitaev, and a two-dimensional Kekul'e-type topological insulator, including graphene as a special instance in coupling space, dual to a p-wave superconductor. Since our analysis extends to interacting fermion systems, we also briefly discuss some such applications.