Exact weak bosonic zero modes in a spin/fermion chain

Abstract

We study an exactly solvable one-dimensional spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ model which can support weak zero modes in its ground state manifold. The spin chain has staggered XXZ-type and ZZ-type spin interaction on neighboring bonds and is thus dubbed the (XXZ,Z) chain. The model is equivalent to an interacting fermionic chain by Jordan-Wigner transformation. We study the phase diagram of the system and work out the conditions and properties of its weak zero modes. In the fermion chain representation, these weak zero modes are given by even-order polynomials of Majorana fermion operators and are thus bosonic. The fermionic chain Hamiltonian contains only fermion hopping and interaction terms and may have potential realization in experiments.