Topological Orders Beyond Topological Quantum Field Theories

Abstract: Systems displaying quantum topological order feature robust characteristics that are very attractive to quantum computing schemes. Topological quantum field theories have proven to be powerful in capturing the quintessential attributes of systems displaying topological order including, in particular, their anyon excitations. Here, we investigate systems that lie outside this common purview, and present a rich class of models exhibiting topological orders with distance-dependent interactions between anyons. As we illustrate, in some instances, the gapped lowest-energy excitations are comprised of anyons that densely cover the entire system. This leads to behaviors not typically described by topological quantum field theories. We examine these models by performing exact dualities to systems displaying conventional (i.e., Landau) orders. Our approach enables a general method for mapping generic Landau-type theories to dual models with topological order of the same spatial dimension. The low-energy subspaces of our models can be made more resilient to thermal effects than those of surface codes.