Axion topological field theory of topological superconductors

Abstract

Topological superconductors are gapped superconductors with gapless and topologically robust quasiparticles propagating on the boundary. In this paper, we present a topological field theory description of three-dimensional time-reversal invariant topological superconductors. In our theory the topological superconductor is characterized by a topological coupling between the electromagnetic field and the superconducting phase fluctuation, which has the same form as the coupling of "axions" with an Abelian gauge field. As a physical consequence of our theory, we predict the level crossing induced by the crossing of special "chiral" vortex lines, which can be realized by considering s-wave superconductors in proximity with the topological superconductor. Our theory can also be generalized to the coupling with a gravitational field.

11 pages, 3 figures. An error in the references is corrected. The acknowledgement is updated

References in corpus (4)

• Classification of topological insulators and superconductors in three spatial dimensions
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• Topological Defects and Gapless Modes in Insulators and Superconductors
• Topological field theory and thermal responses of interacting topological superconductors

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