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Strong Zero Modes from Geometric Chirality in Quasi-One-Dimensional Mott Insulators.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Santos, Raul A 
Béri, Benjamin 

Abstract

Strong zero modes provide a paradigm for quantum many-body systems to encode local degrees of freedom that remain coherent far from the ground state. Example systems include Z_{n} chiral quantum clock models with strong zero modes related to Z_{n} parafermions. Here, we show how these models and their zero modes arise from geometric chirality in fermionic Mott insulators, focusing on n=3 where the Mott insulators are three-leg ladders. We link such ladders to Z_{3} chiral clock models by combining bosonization with general symmetry considerations. We also introduce a concrete lattice model which we show to map to the Z_{3} chiral clock model, perturbed by the Uimin-Lai-Sutherland Hamiltonian arising via superexchange. We demonstrate the presence of strong zero modes in this perturbed model by showing that correlators of clock operators at the edge remain close to their initial value for times exponentially long in the system size, even at infinite temperature.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.stat-mech

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

125

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
European Research Council (678795)