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arXiv:2204.01924 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Spontaneously broken supersymmetric fracton phases with fermionic subsystem symmetries

Hosho Katsura, Yu Nakayama

Published Aug 4, 2022• 21 citations
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Abstract

Abstract We construct a purely fermionic system with spontaneously broken supersymmetry that shares the common feature with a fracton phase of matter. Our model is gapless due to the Nambu-Goldstone mechanism. It shows a ground-state degeneracy with the “Area-law” entropy due to fermionic subsystem symmetries. In the strongly coupled limit, it becomes a variant of the Nicolai model, and we conjecture that the ground-state degeneracy shows the “Volume-law” entropy. Gauging the fermionic subsystem symmetry has an t’Hooft anomaly by itself, but the would-be gauged theory may possess a fermionic defect that is immobile in certain spatial directions.

DOI
10.1007/jhep08(2022)072

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Abstract We construct a purely fermionic system with spontaneously broken supersymmetry that shares the common feature with a fracton phase of matter. Our model is gapless due to the Nambu-Goldstone mechanism. It shows a ground-state degeneracy with the “Area-law” entropy due to fermionic subsystem symmetries. In the strongly coupled limit, it becomes a variant of the Nicolai model, and we conjecture that the ground-state degeneracy shows the “Volume-law” entropy. Gauging the fermionic subsystem symmetry has an t’Hooft anomaly by itself, but the would-be gauged theory may possess a fermionic defect that is immobile in certain spatial directions.
We study a model of interacting spinless fermions in a one dimensional lattice with supersymmetry (SUSY). The Hamiltonian is given by the anticommutator of two supercharges QQQ and ${Q}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}$, each of which is comprised solely of fermion operators and possesses one adjustable parameter ggg. When the parameter ggg vanishes, the model is identical to the one studied by Nicolai [H. Nicolai, J. Phys. A 9, 1497 (1976)], where the zero-energy ground state is exponentially degenerate. On the other hand, in the large-ggg limit the model reduces to the free-fermion chain with a four-fold degenerate ground state. We show that for finite chains SUSY is spontaneously broken when g>0g>0g>0. We also rigorously prove that for sufficiently large ggg the ground-state energy density is nonvanishing in the infinite-volume limit. We further analyze the nature of the low-energy excitations by employing various techniques such as rigorous inequalities, exact numerical diagonalization, and renormalization group method with bosonization. The analysis reveals that the low-energy excitations are described by massless Dirac fermions (or Thirring fermions more generally), which can be thought of as Nambu-Goldstone fermions from the spontaneous SUSY breaking.
We study models with fractonlike order based on Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ lattice gauge theories with subsystem symmetries in two and three spatial dimensions. The three-dimensional (3D) model reduces to the 3D toric code when subsystem symmetry is broken, giving an example of a subsystem symmetry enriched topological phase. Although not topologically protected, its ground-state degeneracy has as leading contribution a term which grows exponentially with the square of the linear size of the system. Also, there are completely mobile gauge charges living along with immobile fractons. Our method shows that fractonlike phases are also present in more usual lattice gauge theories. We calculate the entanglement entropy SA{S}_{A}SA​ of these models in a subregion AAA of the lattice and show that it is equal to the logarithm of the ground-state degeneracy of a particular restriction of the full model to AAA.
Fractonic phases are new phases of matter that host excitations with restricted mobility. We show that a certain class of gapless fractonic phases are realized as a result of spontaneous breaking of continuous higher-form symmetries whose conserved charges do not commute with spatial translations. We refer to such symmetries as nonuniform higher-form symmetries. These symmetries fall within the standard definition of higher-form symmetries in quantum field theory, and the corresponding symmetry generators are topological. Worldlines of particles are regarded as the charged objects of 1-form symmetries, and mobility restrictions can be implemented by introducing additional 1-form symmetries whose generators do not commute with spatial translations. These features are realized by effective field theories associated with spontaneously broken nonuniform 1-form symmetries. At low energies, the theories reduce to known higher-rank gauge theories such as scalar/vector charge gauge theories, and the gapless excitations in these theories are interpreted as Nambu-Goldstone modes for higher-form symmetries. Due to the nonuniformity of the symmetry, some of the modes acquire a gap, which is the higher-form analogue of the inverse Higgs mechanism of spacetime symmetries. The gauge theories have emergent nonuniform magnetic symmetries, and some of the magnetic monopoles become fractonic. We identify the ’t Hooft anomalies of the nonuniform higher-form symmetries and the corresponding bulk symmetry-protected topological phases. By this method, the mobility restrictions are fully determined by the choice of the commutation relations of charges with translations. This approach allows us to view existing (gapless) fracton models such as the scalar/vector charge gauge theories and their variants from a unified perspective and enables us to engineer theories with desired mobility restrictions.
We introduce a supersymmetric lattice fermion model that contains both fermion pairing and the interacting Nicolai model. This model possesses a single control parameter, ggg, introduced through the anticommutator of the supersymmetry generators (supercharge), and it is shown that supersymmetry is broken in both finite and infinite systems as long as ggg is finite. Additionally, the single-mode approximation is employed to establish an upper bound on the dispersion relation of Nambu-Goldstone (NG) fermions, demonstrating their gaplessness. Finally, it is shown, through numerical and analytic calculations, that the anticipated extensive ground-state degeneracy and a zero-energy flat band does not occur for generic values of the parameter ggg.
Subsystem symmetry has emerged as a powerful organizing principle for unconventional quantum phases of matter, most prominently fracton topological orders. Here, we focus on a special subclass of such symmetries, known as higher-form subsystem symmetries, which allow us to adapt tools from the study of conventional topological phases to the fracton setting. We demonstrate that certain transitions out of familiar fracton phases, including the X-cube model, can be understood in terms of the spontaneous breaking of higher-form subsystem symmetries. We find simple pictures for these seemingly complicated fracton topological phase transitions by relating them in an exact manner, via gauging, to spontaneous higher-form subsystem symmetry breaking phase transitions of decoupled stacks of lower-dimensional models. We harness this perspective to construct a sequence of unconventional subdimensional critical points in two and three spatial dimensions based on the stacking and gauging of canonical models with higher-form symmetry. Through numerous examples, we illustrate the ubiquity of coupled layer constructions in theories with higher-form subsystem symmetries.
We introduce a lattice fermion model in one spatial dimension with supersymmetry (SUSY) but without particle number conservation. The Hamiltonian is defined as the anticommutator of two nilpotent supercharges QQQ and ${Q}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}$. Each supercharge is built solely from spinless fermion operators and depends on a parameter ggg. The system is strongly interacting for small ggg, and in the extreme limit g=0g=0g=0, the number of zero-energy ground states grows exponentially with the system size. By contrast, in the large-ggg limit, the system is noninteracting and SUSY is broken spontaneously. We study the model for modest values of ggg and show that under certain conditions spontaneous SUSY breaking occurs in both finite and infinite chains. We analyze the low-energy excitations both analytically and numerically. Our analysis suggests that the Nambu-Goldstone fermions accompanying the spontaneous SUSY breaking have cubic dispersion at low energies.