Anomaly of $(2+1)$-Dimensional Symmetry-Enriched Topological Order from $(3+1)$-Dimensional Topological Quantum Field Theory

Abstract

Symmetry acting on a (2+1)$D$ topological order can be anomalous in the sense that they possess an obstruction to being realized as a purely (2+1)$D$ on-site symmetry. In this paper, we develop a (3+1)$D$ topological quantum field theory to calculate the anomaly indicators of a (2+1)$D$ topological order with a general symmetry group $G$, which may be discrete or continuous, Abelian or non-Abelian, contain anti-unitary elements or not, and permute anyons or not. These anomaly indicators are partition functions of the (3+1)$D$ topological quantum field theory on a specific manifold equipped with some $G$-bundle, and they are expressed using the data characterizing the topological order and the symmetry actions. Our framework is applied to derive the anomaly indicators for various symmetry groups, including ${\mathbb{Z}}_2\times {\mathbb{Z}}_2$, ${\mathbb{Z}}_2^T\times {\mathbb{Z}}_2^T$, $SO(N)$, $O(N{)}^T$, $SO(N)\times {\mathbb{Z}}_2^T$, etc, where ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ and ${\mathbb{Z}}_2^T$ denote a unitary and anti-unitary order-2 group, respectively, and $O(N{)}^T$ denotes a symmetry group $O(N)$ such that elements in $O(N)$ with determinant $-1$ are anti-unitary. In particular, we demonstrate that some anomaly of $O(N{)}^T$ and $SO(N)\times {\mathbb{Z}}_2^T$ exhibit symmetry-enforced gaplessness, i.e., they cannot be realized by any symmetry-enriched topological order. As a byproduct, for $SO(N)$ symmetric topological orders, we derive their $SO(N)$ Hall conductance.

Recipe of calculating the partition function involving continuous symmetries added, together with extra examples

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• Symmetry fractionalization and duality defects in Maxwell theory
• Classification of symmetry-enriched topological quantum spin liquids
• Bosonization and Anomaly Indicators of (2+1)-D Fermionic Topological Orders