Quantum phase transition between symmetry enriched topological phases in tensor-network states

Abstract

Quantum phase transitions between different topologically ordered phases exhibit rich structures and are generically challenging to study in microscopic lattice models. In this paper, we propose a tensor-network solvable model that allows us to tune between different symmetry enriched topological (SET) phases. Concretely, we consider a decorated two-dimensional toric code model for which the ground state can be expressed as a two-dimensional tensor-network state with bond dimension D=3 and two tunable parameters. We find that the time-reversal (TR) symmetric system exhibits three distinct phases: (i) an SET toric code phase in which anyons transform nontrivially under TR, (ii) a toric code phase in which TR does not fractionalize, and (iii) a topologically trivial phase that is adiabatically connected to a product state. We characterize the different phases using the topological entanglement entropy and a membrane order parameter that distinguishes the two SET phases. Along the phase boundary between the SET toric code phase and the toric code phase, the model has an enhanced U(1) symmetry and the ground state is a quantum critical loop gas wavefunction whose squared norm is equivalent to the partition function of the classical O(2) model. By duality transformations, this tensor-network solvable model can also be used to describe transitions between SET double-semion phases and between Z_{2}×Z_{2}^{T} symmetry protected topological phases in two dimensions.