The Kitaev honeycomb model on surfaces of genus $g \geq 2$

Abstract

We present a construction of the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model on an arbitrary higher genus surface. We first generalize the exact solution of the model based on the Jordan-Wigner fermionization to a surface with genus $g = 2$, and then use this as a basic module to extend the solution to lattices of arbitrary genus. We demonstrate our method by calculating the ground states of the model in both the Abelian doubled $\mathbb{Z}_2$ phase and the non-Abelian Ising topological phase on lattices with the genus up to $g = 6$. We verify the expected ground state degeneracy of the system in both topological phases and further illuminate the role of fermionic parity in the Abelian phase.