08.12.2020 (Tuesday)

Volume preserving diffeomorphism as a higher-rank gauge symmetry

Regular Seminar Dam Thanh Son (Univerity of Chicago)

at:
15:00 IC
room zoom 871 9223 5980
abstract:

Recently, theories with higher rank gauge symmetries are drawing attention in condensed matter physics. Such theories are thought to be related to the so-called "fractons," quasiparticles with limited mobility that appear in some lattice models. We show that one version of such higher ranked symmetry can be "nonlinearlized" into volume-preserving diffeomorphism. We demonstrate that several condensed matter systems, including the fractional quantum Hall effect and ferromagnetism, secretly possess this symmetry, which sheds another light to some peculiar features of the quasiparticles in these systems. [please email a.held@imperial.ac.uk for zoom link or password]