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Spontaneous symmetry breaking from anyon condensation

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

In the context of quantum spin liquids, it is long known that the condensation of fractionalized excitations can inevitably break certain physical symmetries. For example, condensing spinons will usually break spin rotation and time reversal symmetries. We generalize these phenomena to the context of a generic continuous quantum phase transition between symmetry enriched topological orders, driven by anyon condensation. We provide two rules to determine whether a symmetry is enforced to break across an anyon condensation transition or not. Using a dimensional reduction scheme, we establish a mapping between these symmetry-breaking anyon-condensation transitions in two spatial dimensions, and deconfined quantum criticality in one spatial dimension.

Mathematics; Quantum theory; Mathematical physics

video/mp4

Author affiliation: Ohio State University

2019-12-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/72539

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/