Transgression field theory at the interface of topological insulators

Abstract

Topological phases of matter can be classified by using Clifford algebras through Bott periodicity. We consider effective topological field theories of quantum Hall systems and topological insulators that are Chern-Simons and BF field theories. The edge states of these systems are related to the gauge invariance of the effective actions. For the edge states at the interface of two topological insulators, transgression field theory is proposed as a gauge invariant effective action. Transgression actions of Chern-Simons theories for (2+1)D and (4+1)D and BF theories for (3+1)D are constructed. By using transgression actions, the edge states are written in terms of the bulk connections of effective Chern-Simons and BF theories.