Discrete quantum systems from topological field theory

Abstract

We introduce a technique to construct gapped lattice models using defects in topological field theory. We illustrate with 2+1 dimensional models, for example Chern-Simons theories. These models are local, though the state space is not necessarily a tensor product of vector spaces over the complex numbers. The Hamiltonian is a sum of commuting projections. We also give a topological field theory construction of Levin-Wen models.