No abstract uploaded!

We introduce the concept of boundary degeneracy of topologically ordered states on a compact orientable spatial manifold with boundaries, and emphasize that the boundary degeneracy provides richer information than the bulk degeneracy. Beyond the bulk-edge correspondence, we find the ground state degeneracy of the fully gapped edge modes depends on boundary gapping conditions. By associating different types of boundary gapping conditions as different ways of particle or quasiparticle condensations on the boundary, we develop an analytic theory of gapped boundaries. By Chern-Simons theory, this allows us to derive the ground state degeneracy formula in terms of boundary gapping conditions, which encodes more than the fusion algebra of fractionalized quasiparticles. We apply our theory to Kitaev's toric code and Levin-Wen string-net models. We predict that the Z2 toric code and Z2 double-semion model (more generally, the Zk gauge theory and the U(1)k×U(1)−k non-chiral fractional quantum Hall state at even integer k) can be numerically and experimentally distinguished, by measuring their boundary degeneracy on an annulus or a cylinder.

A class of strongly interacting many-body fermionic systems in 2+1D non-relativistic conformal field theory is examined via the gauge-gravity duality correspondence. The 5D charged black hole with asymptotic Schrodinger isometry in the bulk gravity side introduces parameters of background density and finite particle number into the boundary field theory. We propose the holographic dictionary, and realize a quantum phase transition of this fermionic liquid with fixed particle number by tuning the background density β at zero temperature. On the larger β side, we find the signal of a sharp quasiparticle pole on the spectral function A(k,w), indicating a well-defined Fermi surface. On the smaller β side, we find only a hump with no sharp peak for A(k,w), indicating the disappearance of Fermi surface. The dynamical exponent z of quasiparticle dispersion goes from being Fermi-liquid-like z≃1 scaling at larger β to a non-Fermi-liquid scaling z≃3/2 at smaller β. By comparing the structure of Green's function with Landau Fermi liquid theory and Senthil's scaling ansatz, we further investigate the behavior of this quantum phase transition.

We show that the spinning magnetic one-brane in minimal five-dimensional supergravity admits a decoupling limit that interpolates smoothly between a self-dual null orbifold of AdS_3 \times S^2 and the near-horizon limit of the extremal Kerr black hole times a circle. We use this interpolating solution to understand the field theory dual to spinning M5 branes as a deformation of the Discrete Light Cone Quantized (DLCQ) Maldacena-Stominger-Witten (MSW) CFT. In particular, the conformal weights of the operators dual to the deformation around AdS_3 \times S^2 are calculated. We present pieces of evidence showing that a CFT dual to the four-dimensional extremal Kerr can be obtained from the deformed MSW CFT.

When two topologically identical shapes are blended, various possible transformation paths exist from the source shape to the target shape. Which one is the most plausible? Here we propose that the transformation process should obey a quasi-physical law. This paper combines morphing with deformation theory from continuum mechanics. By using strain energy, which reflects the magnitude of deformation, as an objective function, we convert the problem of path interpolation into an unconstrained optimization problem. To reduce the number of variables in the optimization we adopt shape functions, as used in the finite element method (FEM). A point-to-point correspondence between the source and target shapes is naturally established using these polynomial functions plus a distance map.