Pauli stabilizer formalism for topological quantum field theories and generalized statistics (2601.00064v1)

Abstract: Topological quantum field theory (TQFT) provides a unifying framework for describing topological phases of matter and for constructing quantum error-correcting codes, playing a central role across high-energy physics, condensed matter, and quantum information. A central challenge is to formulate topological order on the lattice and to extract the properties of topological excitations from microscopic Hamiltonians. In this work, we construct new classes of lattice gauge theories as Pauli stabilizer models, realizing a wide range of TQFTs in general spacetime dimensions. We develop a lattice description of the resulting extended excitations and systematically determine their generalized statistics. Our main example is the $(4+1)$D \emph{fermionic-loop toric code}, obtained by condensing the $e^2 m^2$-loop in the $(4+1)$D $\mathbb{Z}_4$ toric code. We show that the loop excitation exhibits fermionic loop statistics: the 24-step loop-flipping process yields a phase of $-1$. Our Pauli stabilizer models realize all twisted 2-form gauge theories in $(4+1)$D, the higher-form Dijkgraaf-Witten TQFT classified by $H^{5}(B^{2}G, U(1))$. % Beyond $(4+1)$D, the fermionic-loop toric codes form a family of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological orders in arbitrary dimensions featuring fermionic loop excitations, realized as explicit Pauli stabilizer codes using $\mathbb{Z}_4$ qudits. % Finally, we develop a Pauli-based framework that defines generalized statistics for extended excitations in any dimension, yielding computable lattice unitary processes to detect nontrivial generalized statistics. For example, we propose anyonic membrane statistics in $(6+1)$D, as well as fermionic membrane and volume statistics in arbitrary dimensions. We construct new families of $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological orders: the \emph{fermionic-membrane toric code} and the \emph{fermionic-volume toric code}.