Topological Superconductivity in Doped Symmetry Protected Topological State

Abstract: We propose an exotic scenario that topological superconductivity can emerge by doping strongly interacting fermionic systems whose spin degrees of freedom form bosonic symmetry protected topological (SPT) state. Specifically, we study a 1-dimensional (1D) example where the spin degrees of freedom form a spin-1 Haldane phase. {Before doping, the charge and spin degrees of freedom are both gapped.} Upon doping, {the charge channel becomes gapless and is described by a $c=1$ compactified bosonic conformal field theory (CFT), while the spin channel remains gapped and still form a bosonic SPT state. Interestingly,} an instability toward $p$-wave topological superconductivity is induced coexisting with the symmetry protected spin edge modes that are inherited from the Haldane phase. This scenario is confirmed by density-matrix renormalization group simulation of a concrete lattice model, where we find that topological superconductivity is robust against interactions. We further show that by stacking doped Haldane phases an exotic 2D anisotropic superconductor can be realized, {where the boundaries transverse to the {chain-}direction are either gapless or spontaneously symmetry-broken due to the Lieb-Schultz-Mattis (LSM) anomaly.}