Russian doll spectrum in a non-Abelian string-net ladder

Abstract

We study a string-net ladder in the presence of a string tension. Focusing on the simplest non-Abelian anyon theory with a quantum dimension larger than two, we determine the phase diagram and find a Russian doll spectrum featuring size-independent energy levels as well as highly degenerate zero-energy eigenstates. At the self-dual points, we compute the gap exactly by using a mapping onto the Temperley-Lieb chain. These results are in stark constrast with the ones obtained for Fibonacci or Ising theories.