Paper detail

Higher-dimensional generalizations of the Berry curvature

A family of finite-dimensional quantum systems with a non-degenerate ground state gives rise to a closed 2-form on the parameter space: the curvature of the Berry connection. Its cohomology class is a topological invariant of the family. We seek generalizations of the Berry curvature to families of gapped many-body systems in D spatial dimensions. Field theory predicts that in spatial dimension D the analog of the Berry curvature is a closed (D+2)-form on the parameter space (the Wess-Zumino-Witten form). We construct such closed forms for arbitrary families of interacting lattice systems in all dimensions. In the special case of systems of free fermions in one dimension, we show that these forms can be expressed in terms of the Bloch-Berry connection on the product of the Brillouin zone and the parameter space. In the case of families of Short-Range Entangled systems, we argue that integrals of our forms over spherical cycles are quantized.