Computational Modelling Group

Seminar  23rd April 2013 noon  Building 54, Room 5025

Abelian Chern-Simons-Maxwell theory from a tight binding model of spinless fermions

Jiannis Pachos
Leeds

Categories
Complex Systems
Submitter
Luke Goater

Abelian Chern-Simons-Maxwell theory can emerge from the bosonisation of the 2+1-dimensional Thirring model that describes interacting Dirac fermions. In this talk I will show how the Thirring model manifests itself in the low energy limit of a two-dimensional tight binding model of spinless fermions. To establish that we employ a modification of Haldane's model, where the ``doubling" of fermions is rectified by adiabatic elimination. Subsequently, fermionic interactions are introduced that lead to the analytically tractable Thirring model. By local density measurements of the lattice fermions we can establish that for specific values of the couplings the model exhibits the confining 2+1-dimensional QED phase or a topological ordered phase that corresponds to the Chern-Simons theory. The implementation of the model as well as the measurement protocol are accessible with current technology of cold atoms in optical lattices.

This is based on a work we submitted recently arXiv:1301.2625