No Arabic abstract
We show how U(1) lattice gauge theories display key signatures of ergodicity breaking in the presence of a random charge background. Contrary to the widely studied case of spin models, in the presence of Coulomb interactions, the spectral properties of such lattice gauge theories are very weakly affected by finite-volume effects. This allows to draw a sharp boundary for the ergodic regime, and thus the breakdown of quantum chaos for sufficiently strong gauge couplings, at the system sizes accessible via exact diagonalization. Our conclusions are independent on the value of a background topological angle, and are contrasted with a gauge theory with truncated Hilbert space, where instead we observe very strong finite-volume effects akin to those observed in spin chains.
Gauge symmetries play a key role in physics appearing in areas such as quantum field theories of the fundamental particles and emergent degrees of freedom in quantum materials. Motivated by the desire to efficiently simulate many-body quantum systems with exact local gauge invariance, gauge equivariant neural-network quantum states are introduced, which exactly satisfy the local Hilbert space constraints necessary for the description of quantum lattice gauge theory with Zd gauge group on different geometries. Focusing on the special case of Z2 gauge group on a periodically identified square lattice, the equivariant architecture is analytically shown to contain the loop-gas solution as a special case. Gauge equivariant neural-network quantum states are used in combination with variational quantum Monte Carlo to obtain compact descriptions of the ground state wavefunction for the Z2 theory away from the exactly solvable limit, and to demonstrate the confining/deconfining phase transition of the Wilson loop order parameter.
We consider magnon excitations in the spin-glass phase of geometrically frustrated antiferromagnets with weak exchange disorder, focussing on the nearest-neighbour pyrochlore-lattice Heisenberg model at large spin. The low-energy degrees of freedom in this system are represented by three copies of a U(1) emergent gauge field, related by global spin-rotation symmetry. We show that the Goldstone modes associated with spin-glass order are excitations of these gauge fields, and that the standard theory of Goldstone modes in Heisenberg spin glasses (due to Halperin and Saslow) must be modified in this setting.
We classify symmetry fractionalization and anomalies in a (3+1)d U(1) gauge theory enriched by a global symmetry group $G$. We find that, in general, a symmetry-enrichment pattern is specified by 4 pieces of data: $rho$, a map from $G$ to the duality symmetry group of this $mathrm{U}(1)$ gauge theory which physically encodes how the symmetry permutes the fractional excitations, $ uinmathcal{H}^2_{rho}[G, mathrm{U}_mathsf{T}(1)]$, the symmetry actions on the electric charge, $pinmathcal{H}^1[G, mathbb{Z}_mathsf{T}]$, indication of certain domain wall decoration with bosonic integer quantum Hall (BIQH) states, and a torsor $n$ over $mathcal{H}^3_{rho}[G, mathbb{Z}]$, the symmetry actions on the magnetic monopole. However, certain choices of $(rho, u, p, n)$ are not physically realizable, i.e. they are anomalous. We find that there are two levels of anomalies. The first level of anomalies obstruct the fractional excitations being deconfined, thus are referred to as the deconfinement anomaly. States with these anomalies can be realized on the boundary of a (4+1)d long-range entangled state. If a state does not suffer from a deconfinement anomaly, there can still be the second level of anomaly, the more familiar t Hooft anomaly, which forbids certain types of symmetry fractionalization patterns to be implemented in an on-site fashion. States with these anomalies can be realized on the boundary of a (4+1)d short-range entangled state. We apply these results to some interesting physical examples.
Building upon techniques employed in the construction of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, which is a solvable $0+1$ dimensional model of a non-Fermi liquid, we develop a solvable, infinite-ranged random-hopping model of fermions coupled to fluctuating U(1) gauge fields. In a specific large-$N$ limit, our model realizes a gapless non-Fermi liquid phase, which combines the effects of hopping and interaction terms. We derive the thermodynamic properties of the non-Fermi liquid phase realized by this model, and the charge transport properties of an infinite-dimensional version with spatial structure.
We compute the transport and chaos properties of lattices of quantum Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev islands coupled by single fermion hopping, and with the islands coupled to a large number of local, low energy phonons. We find two distinct regimes of linear-in-temperature ($T$) resistivity, and describe the crossover between them. When the electron-phonon coupling is weak, we obtain the `incoherent metal regime, where there is near-maximal chaos with front propagation at a butterfly velocity $v_B$, and the associated diffusivity $D_{rm chaos} = v_B^2/(2 pi T)$ closely tracks the energy diffusivity. On the other hand, when the electron-phonon coupling is strong, and the linear resistivity is largely due to near-elastic scattering of electrons off nearly free phonons, we find that the chaos is far from maximal and spreads diffusively. We also describe the crossovers to low $T$ regimes where the electronic quasiparticles are well defined.