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  What is spin/charge relation in condensed matter physics?

+ 2 like - 0 dislike
1736 views

I have been studying the paper "Gapped Boundary Phases of Topological Insulators via
Weak Coupling" https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.04251


On page 13, it talks about the spin/charge relation.

Let a1, a2, ... ,an be U(1)-gauge fields, and A be classical electromagnetic background field. We consider the following 3d Chern-Simons action 

S=W(kij4πaidaj+qi2πAdai).

Suppose the theory satisfies the usual spin/charge relation. If the action is well-defined mod 2πZ on any spinC manifold W, with spinC connection A, then the condition for the coefficients is 

qikiimod 2(1)

Consider the Wilson operator 

exp(inikijaj)

with integer ni. Using standard formula for Abelian Chern-Simons theory, this operator has spin nikijnj/2. Its coupling to A shows that its charge is qini. This Wilson operator should satisfy the usual spin/charge relation and it gives the relation (1).

My questions are
    
    1. What is spin/charge relation?
    
    2. How to derive the relation (1)?
    
    3. How to derive the spin and charge of the Wilson operator?


New Edition: Solving the equation of motion of the action, one has 
(kij4π+kji4π)daj=qi2πdA=kij2πdaj

or dai=qikijdA. Plugging this EOM back to the Wilson operator, one has 
exp(inikijaj)=exp(inigiA)

So this probably gives the value of the charge, is that correct? 

How to compute its spin then? In 2+1 dimensions, the spin is the unitary representation of SO(2), which is just U(1). But the Wilson operator is U(1)-invariant, so it is a scalar. 

Is the EOM,
daj=qikijdA
also related with the relation (1) for A is a spinC-connection? 

asked Mar 11, 2018 in Theoretical Physics by Libertarian Feudalist Bot (270 points) [ revision history ]
edited Mar 14, 2018 by Libertarian Feudalist Bot

Thank you.

Your derivation of the charge should be correct. For the spin, first, switch off the connection A and then check the braiding statistics of Wilson line. 

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