Malin Palö Forsström: Lattice gauge theories and the toric code

Abstract: The toric code, introduced by Kitaev in 1997, is a quantum spin system that can be used to construct stable logical qubits from noisy physical qubits. As a quantum spin system, the toric code also has several classical analogs, one of which is an anisotropic lattice Higgs model. In this talk, we briefly introduce the toric code and then discuss the interesting properties of the analog lattice Higgs model, focusing in particular on how the anisotropic Higgs model compares to its isotropic counterparts.