Exact Bosonization in All Dimensions: the Duality Between Fermionic and Bosonic Phases of Matter

Citation

Chen, Yu-An (2020) Exact Bosonization in All Dimensions: the Duality Between Fermionic and Bosonic Phases of Matter. Dissertation (Ph.D.), California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/593v-5r52. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:06082020-083409184

Abstract

We describe an n-dimensional (n≥2) analog of the Jordan-Wigner transformation, which maps an arbitrary fermionic system to Pauli matrices while preserving the locality of the Hamiltonian. When the space is simply-connected, this bosonization gives a duality between any fermionic system in arbitrary n spatial dimensions and a new class of (n-1)-form Z₂ gauge theories in n dimensions with a modified Gauss’s law. We describe several examples of 2d bosonization, including free fermions on square and honeycomb lattices and the Hubbard model, and 3d bosonization, including a solvable Z₂ lattice gauge theory with Dirac cones in the spectrum. This bosonization formalism has an explicit dependence on the second Stiefel-Whitney class and a choice of spin structure on the manifold, a key feature for defining fermions. A new formula for Stiefel-Whitney homology classes on lattices is derived. We also derive the Euclidean actions for the corresponding lattice gauge theories from the bosonization. The topological actions contain Chern-Simons terms for (2+1)D or Steenrod Square terms for general dimensions. Finally, we apply the bosonization to construct various bosonic or fermionic symmetry-protectedtopological (SPT) phases. It has been shown that supercohomology fermionic SPT phases are dual to bosonic higher-group SPT phases.

Thesis Files