Scaling law for topologically ordered systems at finite temperature

Abstract

Understanding the behavior of topologically ordered lattice systems at finite temperature is a way of assessing their potential as fault-tolerant quantum memories. We compute the natural extension of the topological entanglement entropy for T>0, namely, the subleading correction I(topo) to the area law for mutual information. Its dependence on T can be written, for Abelian Kitaev models, in terms of information-theoretical functions and readily identifiable scaling behavior, from which the interplay between volume, temperature, and topological order, can be read. These arguments are extended to non-Abelian quantum double models, and numerical results are given for the D(S(3)) model, showing qualitative agreement with the Abelian case.