Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem for quasitopological systems

Abstract

In this paper we address the question of the existence of a spectral gap in a class of local Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians have the following properties: their ground states are known exactly; all equal-time correlation functions of local operators are short-ranged; and correlation functions of certain nonlocal operators are critical. A variational argument shows gaplessness with ω ∝ k^2 at critical points defined by the absence of certain terms in the Hamiltonian, which is remarkable because equal-time correlation functions of local operators remain short ranged. We call such critical points, in which spatial and temporal scaling are radically different, quasitopological. When these terms are present in the Hamiltonian, the models are in gapped topological phases which are of special interest in the context of topological quantum computation.