Robustness of a perturbed topological phase
arXiv:1012.1740 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.107203
Abstract
We investigate the stability of the topological phase of the toric code model in the presence of a uniform magnetic field by means of variational and high-order series expansion approaches. We find that when this perturbation is strong enough, the system undergoes a topological phase transition whose first- or second-order nature depends on the field orientation. When this transition is of second order, it is in the Ising universality class except for a special line on which the critical exponent driving the closure of the gap varies continuously, unveiling a new topological universality class.
5 pages, 3 figures, published version
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