Exotic invertible phases with higher-group symmetries
Abstract
We investigate a family of invertible phases of matter with higher-dimensional exotic excitations in even spacetime dimensions, which includes and generalizes the Kitaev's chain in 1+1d. The excitation has \mathbb{Z}_2&Z;2 higher-form symmetry that mixes with the spacetime Lorentz symmetry to form a higher group spacetime symmetry. We focus on the invertible exotic loop topological phase in 3+1d. This invertible phase is protected by the \mathbb{Z}_2&Z;2 one-form symmetry and the time-reversal symmetry, and has surface thermal Hall conductance not realized in conventional time-reversal symmetric ordinary bosonic systems without local fermion particles and the exotic loops. We describe a UV realization of the invertible exotic loop topological order using the SO(3)_-SO(3)− gauge theory with unit discrete theta parameter, which enjoys the same spacetime two-group symmetry. We discuss several applications including the analogue of ``fermionization'' for ordinary bosonic theories with \mathbb{Z}_2&Z;2 non-anomalous internal higher-form symmetry and time-reversal symmetry.
- Publication:
-
SciPost Physics
- Pub Date:
- February 2022
- DOI:
- 10.21468/SciPostPhys.12.2.052
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2105.09454
- Bibcode:
- 2022ScPP...12...52H
- Keywords:
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- Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- 62 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables