Topological phases protected by symmetry can occur in gapped and-surprisingly-in critical systems. We consider the class of non-interacting fermions in one dimension with spinless timereversal symmetry. It is known that the phases in this class are classified by a topological invariant ω and a central charge c. Here we investigate the correlations of string operators in order to gain insight into the interplay between topology and criticality. In the gapped phases, these non-local operators are the string order parameters that allow us to extract ω. More remarkable is that the correlation lengths of these operators show universal features, depending only on ω. In the critical phases, the scaling dimensions of these operators serve as an order parameter, encoding both ω and c. More generally, we derive the exact long-distance asymptotics of these correlation functions using the theory of Toeplitz determinants. We include physical discussion in light of the mathematical results. This includes an expansion of the lattice operators in terms of the operator content of the relevant conformal field theory. Moreover, we discuss the spin chains which are dual to these fermionic systems.
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