The weakly interacting tenfold way

Abstract

The tenfold way is a classification scheme for the building blocks of free fermion systems. More precisely, it classifies the isomorphism classes of spaces of equivariant free Hamiltonians in irreducible fermion systems with symmetries. This classification scheme naturally leads to the K-theoretical classification of topological phases of matter, known as the periodic table of topological insulators and superconductors. Topological K-theory is represented by spectra $KU$ and $KO$, and in this article we present realizations of these spectra in terms of time evolution operators of irreducible free fermion systems with symmetries, with explicit formulas for the structural suspension maps. We introduce a geometric definition of the space of weakly interacting time evolution operators, as the complement of the cut locus of the subspace of free operators. Our main result is that spectra $KU^{wi}$ and $KO^{wi}$ of weakly interacting time evolution operators deformation retract to $KU$ and $KO$. We thus have a stable homotopy theoretical proof that the tenfold way is stable to weak interactions.