Anyonic membranes and Pontryagin statistics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Feng, Yitao, Xue, Hanyu, Li, Yuyang, Cheng, Meng, Kobayashi, Ryohei, Hsin, Po-Shen, Chen, Yu-An
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Feng, Yitao
Xue, Hanyu
Li, Yuyang
Cheng, Meng
Kobayashi, Ryohei
Hsin, Po-Shen
Chen, Yu-An
author_facet Feng, Yitao
Xue, Hanyu
Li, Yuyang
Cheng, Meng
Kobayashi, Ryohei
Hsin, Po-Shen
Chen, Yu-An
contents Anyons, unique to two spatial dimensions, underlie extraordinary phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, but their generalization to higher dimensions has remained elusive. The topology of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces constrains the loop statistics to be only bosonic or fermionic in any dimension. In this work, we introduce the novel anyonic statistics for membrane excitations in four dimensions. Analogous to the $\mathbb{Z}_N$-particle exhibiting $\mathbb{Z}_{N\times \gcd(2,N)}$ anyonic statistics in two dimensions, we show that the $\mathbb{Z}_N$-membrane possesses $\mathbb{Z}_{N\times \gcd(3,N)}$ anyonic statistics in four dimensions. Given unitary volume operators that create membrane excitations on the boundary, we propose an explicit 56-step unitary sequence that detects the membrane statistics. We further analyze the boundary theory of $(5{+}1)$D 1-form $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetry-protected topological phases and demonstrate that their domain walls realize all possible anyonic membrane statistics. We then show that the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ subgroup persists in all higher dimensions. In addition to the standard fermionic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ membrane statistics arising from Stiefel-Whitney classes, membranes also exhibit $\mathbb{Z}_3$ statistics associated with Pontryagin classes. We explicitly verify that the 56-step process detects the nontrivial $\mathbb{Z}_3$ statistics in 5, 6, and 7 spatial dimensions. Moreover, in 7 and higher dimensions, the statistics of membrane excitations stabilize to $\mathbb{Z}_{2} \times \mathbb{Z}_{3}$, with the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ sector consistently captured by this process.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_14314
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Anyonic membranes and Pontryagin statistics
Feng, Yitao
Xue, Hanyu
Li, Yuyang
Cheng, Meng
Kobayashi, Ryohei
Hsin, Po-Shen
Chen, Yu-An
Quantum Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
High Energy Physics - Theory
Mathematical Physics
Quantum Algebra
Anyons, unique to two spatial dimensions, underlie extraordinary phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect, but their generalization to higher dimensions has remained elusive. The topology of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces constrains the loop statistics to be only bosonic or fermionic in any dimension. In this work, we introduce the novel anyonic statistics for membrane excitations in four dimensions. Analogous to the $\mathbb{Z}_N$-particle exhibiting $\mathbb{Z}_{N\times \gcd(2,N)}$ anyonic statistics in two dimensions, we show that the $\mathbb{Z}_N$-membrane possesses $\mathbb{Z}_{N\times \gcd(3,N)}$ anyonic statistics in four dimensions. Given unitary volume operators that create membrane excitations on the boundary, we propose an explicit 56-step unitary sequence that detects the membrane statistics. We further analyze the boundary theory of $(5{+}1)$D 1-form $\mathbb{Z}_N$ symmetry-protected topological phases and demonstrate that their domain walls realize all possible anyonic membrane statistics. We then show that the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ subgroup persists in all higher dimensions. In addition to the standard fermionic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ membrane statistics arising from Stiefel-Whitney classes, membranes also exhibit $\mathbb{Z}_3$ statistics associated with Pontryagin classes. We explicitly verify that the 56-step process detects the nontrivial $\mathbb{Z}_3$ statistics in 5, 6, and 7 spatial dimensions. Moreover, in 7 and higher dimensions, the statistics of membrane excitations stabilize to $\mathbb{Z}_{2} \times \mathbb{Z}_{3}$, with the $\mathbb{Z}_3$ sector consistently captured by this process.
title Anyonic membranes and Pontryagin statistics
topic Quantum Physics
Strongly Correlated Electrons
High Energy Physics - Theory
Mathematical Physics
Quantum Algebra
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.14314