Volume-preserving diffeomorphism as nonabelian higher-rank gauge symmetry

ORAL

Abstract

Higher-rank gauge theories have been drawing attention in condensed matter physics in recent years. The physical motivation of such theories is thought to be associated with a new class of topological matter so-called "fractons," quasiparticles with restricted mobility. We demonstrate a nonlinear version of the higher rank gauge symmetry in 2+1D and 3+1D with volume-preserving diffeomorphism as the symmetry group. We show that various condensed matter systems, including fractional quantum Hall effect and ferromagnetism, possess this symmetry, which exhibits fractonic behavior of the excitations in these systems.

*This work is supported, in part, by the U.S. DOE grant No. DEFG02-13ER41958, a Simons Investigator grant and by the Simons Collaboration on UltraQuantum Matter, which is a grant from the Simons Foundation (651440, DTS). DXN is supported by the Brown Theoretical Physics Center.

Publication: Y.-H. Du, U. Mehta, D. X. Nguyen, and D. T. Son, Volume-preserving diffeomorphism as nonabelian higher-rank gauge symmetry (2021), arXiv:2103.09826.

Presenters

  • Yi-Hsien Du

    • University of Chicago

Authors

  • Yi-Hsien Du

    • University of Chicago
  • Umang B Mehta

    • University of Chicago
  • Dung X Nguyen

    • Brown University
  • Dam T Son

    • University of Chicago