Topological quantum phase transition in an extended Kitaev spin model

Xiao-Feng Shi, Yue Yu, J. Q. You, Franco Nori

Published 2009-02-02, updated 2009-02-08Version 2

We study the quantum phase transition between Abelian and non-Abelian phases in an extended Kitaev spin model on the honeycomb lattice, where the periodic boundary condition is applied by placing the lattice on a torus. Our analytical results show that this spin model exhibits a continuous quantum phase transition. Also, we reveal the relationship between bipartite entanglement and the ground-state energy. Our approach directly shows that both the entanglement and the ground-state energy can be used to characterize the topological quantum phase transition in the extended Kitaev spin model.