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arXiv:2211.06668 · Physical Review Research

Topological gauge fields and the composite particle duality

Gerard Valentí-Rojas, Aneirin J. Baker, Alessio Celi, Patrik Öhberg

Published May 30, 2023• 7 citations
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Abstract

We unveil a duality that extends the notions of both flux attachment and statistical transmutation in spacetime dimensions beyond ($2+1$)D. Thus, a quantum system in arbitrary dimensions can experience a modification of its statistical properties if coupled to a certain gauge field. For instance, a bosonic quantum fluid can feature composite fermionic (or anyonic) excitations when coupled to a statistical gauge field. We compute the explicit form of the aforementioned synthetic gauge fields in $\text{D}\ensuremath{\le}3+1$. We introduce a bosonic liquid and its composite dual in ($1+1$)D as proof of principle. We recover well-known results, resolve old controversies, and suggest a microscopic mechanism for the emergence of such a gauge field. We also outline potential directions for experimental realizations in ultracold atom platforms.

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.5.023128

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We unveil a duality that extends the notions of both flux attachment and statistical transmutation in spacetime dimensions beyond (2+12+12+1)D. Thus, a quantum system in arbitrary dimensions can experience a modification of its statistical properties if coupled to a certain gauge field. For instance, a bosonic quantum fluid can feature composite fermionic (or anyonic) excitations when coupled to a statistical gauge field. We compute the explicit form of the aforementioned synthetic gauge fields in D\ensuremath≤3+1\text{D}\ensuremath{\le}3+1D\ensuremath≤3+1. We introduce a bosonic liquid and its composite dual in (1+11+11+1)D as proof of principle. We recover well-known results, resolve old controversies, and suggest a microscopic mechanism for the emergence of such a gauge field. We also outline potential directions for experimental realizations in ultracold atom platforms.
Abstract The composite particle duality extends the notions of both flux attachment and statistical transmutation in spacetime dimensions beyond 2 + 1D. It constitutes an exact correspondence that can be understood either as a theoretical framework or as a dynamical physical mechanism. The immediate implication of the duality is that an interacting quantum system in arbitrary dimensions can experience a modification of its statistical properties if coupled to a certain gauge field. In other words, commutation relations of quantum fields can be effectively modified by a dynamical physical process. For instance, an originally bosonic quantum fluid in d spatial dimensions can feature composite fermionic (or anyonic) excitations when coupled to a statistical gauge field. In 3 + 1D the mechanism of flux attachment induces a dynamical formation of dyons as higher-dimensional analogues of Laughlin quasiparticles. In 1 + 1D there is lack of flux attachment but a remnant in the form of a statistical gauge field can be explicitly constructed. We also introduce a family of interacting quantum many-body systems that undergo statistical transmutation as indicated by the duality. This opens the door to a new realm of topological phases across dimensions both in lattice and continuum systems.
Topological field theories emerge at low energy in strongly correlated condensed matter systems and appear in the context of planar gravity.In particular, the study of Chern-Simons terms gives rise to the concept of flux attachment when the gauge field is coupled to matter, yielding flux-charge composites.We investigate the generation of flux attachment in a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of nonlinear synthetic gauge potentials.In doing so, we identify the U (1) Chern-Simons gauge field as a singular density-dependent gauge potential, which in turn can be expressed as a Berry connection.We envisage a proof-of-concept scheme where the artificial gauge field is perturbatively induced by an effective light-matter detuning created by interparticle interactions.At a mean field level, we recover the action of a "charged" superfluid minimally coupled to both a background and a Chern-Simons gauge field.Remarkably, a localized density perturbation in combination with a nonlinear gauge potential gives rise to an effective composite boson model of fractional quantum Hall effect, displaying anyonic vortices.
The identity of quantum matter can be effectively altered by means of gauge fields. In two spatial dimensions this is illustrated by the Chern-Simons flux-attachment mechanism, but such a mechanism is not possible in lower dimensions. Here, we study a one-dimensional interacting Bose gas in the presence of a gauge field. This model can be explicitly mapped into an interacting anyonic system by a large gauge transformation, indicating a statistical transmutation analogous to that of Chern-Simons. The Bogoliubov spectrum in the weakly-interacting limit reveals the presence of a roton minimum arising from the statistical interaction. At a mean-field level chiral solitons are recovered. Should these be understood as quantum bound states, it is natural to interpret them as corresponding to localised anyonic quasiparticles. Hydrodynamic arguments highlight the presence of dispersive chiral shock waves in the propagation of a wavepacket due to a Riemann-Hopf nonlinearity. Numerical calculations show the presence of both chiral soliton trains and shock waves.
Many of the most vexing phenomena observed in condensed matter physics involve strongly correlated systems near quantum critical points in two spatial dimensions. Examples range from the sharing of critical exponents (superuniversality) among quantum Hall plateau transitions to the emergence of a charge-vortex symmetry near the field-tuned superconductor-insulator transition in thin films to the appearance of “anomalous” metallic states which evade localization. These problems elude theoretical understanding because they lack small parameters; standard perturbative approaches constitute poor, often uncontrolled approximations. This thesis concerns itself with the development of techniques reaching beyond the perturbative paradigm, focusing especially on duality, the idea that two seemingly different theories are actually one and the same. While a duality is most useful when it relates a strongly interacting theory to a weakly interacting one, even dualities between strongly coupled theories can reveal emergent symmetries and exotic gapped phases that may be obscure in one theory but not its dual. Recently, starting from a relativistic analogue of flux attachment, an entire web of quantum field theory dualities was proposed connecting a wide variety of quantum critical states in two spatial dimensions. This web of dualities has led to a surge of progress on a wide variety of condensed matter problems, several examples of which are presented in this thesis. One of the major challenges that comes with the proposal of new dualities is to “derive” them. In Chapter 2, we construct simple, explicit derivations of many members of the web of dualities in (particle-hole symmetric) models of relativistic current loops. In relativistic theories, flux attachment necessarily involves transmutation of both statistics and spin, an operation which can be made precise in the context of loop models. We further show that while non-relativistic theories are invariant under attachment of even numbers of flux quanta due to the periodicity of statistics, this symmetry is completely lost in relativistic theories due to the presence of spin, clarifying the interpretation of earlier loop models in which this symmetry appeared to be present. Motivated in part by this lack of statistical periodicity in relativistic flux attachment, in Chapter 3 we turn our attention to the metallic, “composite Fermi liquid” states occuring in quantum Hall systems at filling fraction ν = 1/2n. Famously, the state at ν = 1/2 is known to display particle-hole symmetry, which has recently led to the proposal of a manifestly particle-hole symmetric theory of relativistic, or Dirac, composite fermions that features prominently in the web of dualities. Surprisingly, however, an analogous “reflection symmetry” has also been observed in transport experiments about ν = 1/4. To explain this symmetry, we propose a series of relativistic composite fermion theories for the compressible states at ν = 1/2n, in which the reflection symmetry is incorporated as a mean field time-reversal symmetry of the composite fermions. These theories consist of electrically neutral Dirac fermions attached to 2n flux quanta via an emergent Chern-Simons gauge field. While not possessing an explicit particle-hole symmetry, these theories reproduce the known Jain sequence states proximate to ν = 1/2n, and we show that such states can be related by the observed reflection symmetry, at least at mean field level. In Chapter 4, we describe how duality can be used to access exotic gapped phases, in particular non- Abelian quantum Hall states. Using proposed non-Abelian bosonization dualities in two spatial dimensions, which morally relate U(N)k and SU(k)−N Chern-Simons-matter theories, we present pairing scenarios for which non-Abelian quantum Hall states can be obtained starting from theories of Abelian composite particles. The advantage of these dualities is that regions of the phase diagram which may be obscure on one side of the duality can be accessed by condensing local operators on the other side. Starting from parent Abelian states, we use this approach to construct Landau-Ginzburg theories of non-Abelian states through a pairing mechanism. In particular, we obtain the bosonic Read-Rezayi sequence at fillings ν = k/(kM +2) by starting from k layers of bosons at ν = 1/2 with M Abelian fluxes attached and then condensing k-clusters of the dual non-Abelian bosons. We further extend this constructions to obtain generalizations of the Read-Rezayi states with emergent global symmetries. In Chapter 5, we describe a context in which non-perturbative ideas from duality and perturbative results in the language of the renormalization group (RG) can inform one another: the interplay of quenched disorder and strong interaction effects near quantum critical points. In particular, we focus on the problem of quenched disorder at the superfluid-insulator transition of the O(N) model in the large-N limit. While a random mass is strongly relevant at the free fixed point, its effect is screened by the strong interactions of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point in this model, enabling a perturbative RG study of the interplay of disorder and interactions about this fixed point. In contrast to the spiralling flows obtained in earlier double-ε expansions, we show that the theory flows directly to a quantum critical point characterized by finite disorder and interactions, with critical exponents in remarkable agreement with numerical studies of the superfluid-Mott glass transition. With these results in hand, we apply duality to discuss the possible implications of this result for the dual Abelian Higgs and Chern-Simons-Dirac fermion theories when N = 1.
The Fibonacci topological order is the simplest platform for a universal topological quantum computer. While the $\ensuremath{\nu}=12/5$ fractional quantum Hall (QH) state has been proposed to support a Fibonacci sector, a dynamical picture of how a pure Fibonacci state may emerge in a QH system has been lacking. We use non-Abelian dualities to construct a Fibonacci state of bosons at filling $\ensuremath{\nu}=2$ starting from a trilayer of integer QH states. Our parent theory consists of bosonic composite vortices coupled to fluctuating U(2)U(2)U(2) gauge fields, which is dual to the theory of Laughlin quasiparticles. The Fibonacci state is obtained by interlayer clustering of the composite vortices, along with flux attachment. We use this framework to motivate a wave function for the Fibonacci state.
We present an exact scheme of bosonization for anyons (including fermions) in the two-dimensional manifold of the quantum Hall fluid. This gives every fractional quantum Hall phase of the electrons one or more dual bosonic descriptions. For interacting electrons, the statistical transmutation from anyons to bosons allows us to explicitly derive the microscopic statistical interaction between the anyons, in the form of the effective two-body and few-body interactions. This also leads to a number of unexpected topological phases of the single component bosonic fractional quantum Hall effect that may be experimentally accessible. Numerical analysis of the energy spectrum and ground state entanglement properties are carried out for simple examples.