Changing topology by topological defects in three-dimensional topologically ordered phases

Understand

A hallmark feature of topologically ordered states of matter is the dependence of ground state degeneracy (GSD) on the topology of the manifold determined by the global shape of the system.

• Although the topology of a physical system is practically hard to manipulate, recently it was shown that in certain topologically ordered phases, topological defects can introduce extra topological GSD.
• Here the topological defects can be viewed as effectively changing the topology of the physical system.
• Previous studies have been focusing on two spatial dimensions with point-like topological defects.