Disentangled topological numbers by a purification of entangled mixed states for non-interacting fermion systems

Abstract

We argue that the entanglement Chern number proposed recently is invariant under the adiabatic deformation of a gapped many-body groundstate into a {\it disentangled/purified} one, which implies a partition of the Chern number into subsystems (disentangled Chern number). We generalize the idea to another topological number, the Z$_2$ Berry phase for a system with particle-hole symmetry, and apply it to a groundstate in a weak topological phase where the Chern number vanishes but the groundstate nevertheless has edge states. This entanglement Berry phase is especially useful for characterizing random systems with nontrivial edge states.

6 pages, 3 figures, final version. Open access article in JPSJ