An exactly soluble model with tunable p-wave paired fermion ground states

Abstract

Motivated by the work of Kitaev, we construct an exactly soluble spin-$\frac{1}2$ model on honeycomb lattice whose ground states are identical to $Δ_{1x}p_x+Δ_{1y}p_y+i(Δ_{2x}p_x+Δ_{2y}p_y)$-wave paired fermions on square lattice, with tunable paring order parameters. We derive a universal phase diagram for this general p-wave theory which contains a gapped A phase and a topologically non-trivial B phase. We show that the gapless condition in the B phase is governed by a generalized inversion (G-inversion) symmetry under $p_x\leftrightarrow {Δ_{1y}\over Δ_{1x}} p_y$. The G-inversion symmetric gapless B phase near the phase boundaries is described by 1+1-dimensional gapless Majorana fermions in the asymptotic long wave length limit, i.e. the $c=1/2$ conformal field theory. The gapped B phase has G-inversion symmetry breaking and is the weak pairing phase described by the Moore-Read Pfaffian. We show that in the gapped B phase, vortex pair excitations are separated from the ground state by a finite energy gap.

6 pages, 2 figures, published version