Open Collections

The holographic interface of a fractional (2+1)D topological insulator at finite temperature

University of British Columbia

Topological insulators are materials that are insulating in the bulk but conductive on the boundary. Although standard condensed matter techniques elucidate the dissipationless boundary physics of topological insulators well at weak coupling, they fail to do the same at strong coupling where exciting phenomena such as emergence and fractionalization are likely to occur. Fortunately the AdS/CFT correspondence offers an alternative perspective of the strong coupling limit in the form of a classical supergravity dual. In this thesis we realize the interface of a strongly-interacting fractional (2+1)D time-reversal invariant topological insulator at finite temperature by embedding a D5-brane with a $U(1)$ chemical potential into (AdS₅ black hole) × S⁵ supergravity. The thermodynamics of our interface are found to be considerably fermionic. Study of the interface has promising applications ranging from the design of spin channels in quantum computing, to the deeper understanding of highly-entangled systems.

Text

2014-10-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50728

Physics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/