Nature of a topological quantum phase transition in a chiral spin liquid model

Abstract

We study the finite temperature nature of a quantum phase transition between an Abelian and a non-Abelian topological phase in an exactly solvable model of a chiral spin liquid. By virtue of the exact solvability, this model can serve as a testbed for developing better measures for describing topological quantum phase transitions. We characterize this phase transition in terms of the global flux and entanglement entropy, and discuss to what extent the existence of a topologically ordered ground state with non-Abelian excitations is revealed at finite temperature.