Parity of Chern numbers in the Kitaev honeycomb model and the sixteenfold way

Abstract

In two dimensions, topological phases of free Majorana fermions coupled to a Z 2 gauge field are known to be classified according to the Chern number ν ∈ Z. Its value mod 16 specifies the type of anyonic excitations. In this paper, we investigate triangular vortex configurations (and their dual) in the Kitaev honeycomb model and show that fourteen of these sixteen phases can be obtained by adding a time-reversal symmetry-breaking term. Missing phases are ν=±7. More generally, we prove that any periodic vortex configuration with an odd number of vortices per geometric unit cell can only host even Chern numbers whereas odd Chern numbers can be found in other cases.