Quadrupole gauge theory: anti-Higgs mechanism and elastic dual

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Main Authors: Głódkowski, Aleksander, Matus, Paweł, Peña-Benítez, Francisco, Tsaloukidis, Lazaros
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Głódkowski, Aleksander
Matus, Paweł
Peña-Benítez, Francisco
Tsaloukidis, Lazaros
author_facet Głódkowski, Aleksander
Matus, Paweł
Peña-Benítez, Francisco
Tsaloukidis, Lazaros
contents Motivated by the duality between elasticity and fracton gauge theory, we study an extension of the gauge group that includes the quadrupole moment. Remarkably, we find that spontaneous breaking of the quadrupole symmetry increases the number of massless excitations. This result appears to challenge the well-established paradigm, according to which gauge fields acquire mass through the Higgs mechanism, and the would-be Goldstone bosons are rendered massive. We refer to this phenomenon as the anti-Higgs mechanism. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the quadrupole gauge theory is dual to an exotic class of elastic systems, which we dub incompressible crystals. The anti-Higgs mechanism in the dual theory corresponds to a phase transition from the incompressible crystal state to an ordinary (compressible) solid.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_19350
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quadrupole gauge theory: anti-Higgs mechanism and elastic dual
Głódkowski, Aleksander
Matus, Paweł
Peña-Benítez, Francisco
Tsaloukidis, Lazaros
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Motivated by the duality between elasticity and fracton gauge theory, we study an extension of the gauge group that includes the quadrupole moment. Remarkably, we find that spontaneous breaking of the quadrupole symmetry increases the number of massless excitations. This result appears to challenge the well-established paradigm, according to which gauge fields acquire mass through the Higgs mechanism, and the would-be Goldstone bosons are rendered massive. We refer to this phenomenon as the anti-Higgs mechanism. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the quadrupole gauge theory is dual to an exotic class of elastic systems, which we dub incompressible crystals. The anti-Higgs mechanism in the dual theory corresponds to a phase transition from the incompressible crystal state to an ordinary (compressible) solid.
title Quadrupole gauge theory: anti-Higgs mechanism and elastic dual
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.19350