SU(2) Slave Fermion Solution of the Kitaev Honeycomb Lattice Model

Understand

We apply the SU(2) slave fermion formalism to the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model.

• We show that both the Toric Code phase (the A phase) and the gapless phase of this model (the B phase) can be identified with p-wave superconducting phases of the slave fermions, with nodal lines which, respectively, do not or do intersect the Fermi surface.
• The non-Abelian Ising anyon phase is a $p+ip$ superconducting phase which occurs when the B phase is subjected to a gap-opening magnetic field.
• We also discuss the transitions between these phases in this language.