Axion topological field theory of topological superconductors

作者:Qi Xiao Liang*; Witten Edward; Zhang Shou Cheng
来源:Physical Review B, 2013, 87(13): 134519.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.87.134519

摘要

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. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.134519

  • 出版日期2013-4-25

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