Numerical study of a transition between Z2 topologically ordered phases

Abstract

Distinguishing different topologically ordered phases and characterizing phase transitions between them is a difficult task due to the absence of local order parameters. In this paper, we use a combination of analytical and numerical approaches to distinguish two such phases and characterize a phase transition between them. The "toric code" and "double semion" models are simple lattice models exhibiting Z2 topological order. Although both models express the same topological ground state degeneracies and entanglement entropies, they are distinct phases of matter because their emergent quasi-particles obey different statistics. For a 1D model, we tune a phase transition between these two phases and obtain an exact solution to the entire phase diagram, finding a second-order Ising x Ising transition. We then use exact diagonalization to study the 2D case and find indications of a first-order transition. We show that the quasi-particle statistics provides a robust indicator of the distinct topological orders throughout the whole phase diagram.