Emergent gauge dynamics of highly frustrated magnets

Condensed matter exhibits a wide variety of exotic emergent phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and the low temperature cooperative behavior of highly frustrated magnets. I consider the classical Hamiltonian dynamics of spins of the latter phenomena using a method introduced by Dirac in the 1950s by assuming they are constrained to their lowest energy configurations as a simplifying measure. Focusing on the kagome antiferromagnet as an example, I find it is a gauge system with topological dynamics and non-locally connected edge states for certain open boundary conditions similar to doubled Chern-Simons electrodynamics expected of a $Z_2$ spin liquid. These dynamics are also similar to electrons in the fractional quantum Hall effect. The classical theory presented here is a first step towards a controlled semi-classical description of the spin liquid phases of many pyrochlore and kagome antiferromagnets and towards a description of the low energy classical dynamics of the corresponding unconstrained Heisenberg models.Comment: Updated with some appendices moved to the main body of the paper and some additional improvements. 21 pages, 5 figure

Condensing Nielsen-Olesen strings and the vortex-boson duality in 3+1 and higher dimensions

The vortex-boson (or Abelian-Higgs, XY) duality in 2+1 dimensions demonstrates that the quantum disordered superfluid is equivalent to an ordered superconductor and the other way around. Such a duality structure should be ubiquitous but in 3+1 (and higher) dimensions a precise formulation of the duality is lacking. The problem is that the topological defects become extended objects, strings in 3+1D. We argue how the condensate of such vortex strings must behave from the known physics of the disordered superfluid, namely the Bose-Mott insulator. A flaw in earlier proposals is repaired, and a more direct viewpoint, avoiding gauge fields, in terms of the physical supercurrent is laid out, that also easily generalizes to higher-dimensional and more complicated systems. Furthermore topological defects are readily identified; we demonstrate that the Bose-Mott insulator supports line defects, which may be seen in cold atom experiments.Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages, 5 figures; several revisions and addition

Topological Entanglement Entropy of Fracton Stabilizer Codes

Entanglement entropy provides a powerful characterization of two-dimensional gapped topological phases of quantum matter, intimately tied to their description by topological quantum field theories (TQFTs). Fracton topological orders are three-dimensional gapped topologically ordered states of matter, but the existence of a TQFT description for these phases remains an open question. We show that three-dimensional fracton phases are nevertheless characterized, at least partially, by universal structure in the entanglement entropy of their ground state wave functions. We explicitly compute the entanglement entropy for two archetypal fracton models --- the `X-cube model' and `Haah's code' --- and demonstrate the existence of a topological contribution that scales linearly in subsystem size. We show via Schrieffer-Wolff transformations that the topological entanglement of fracton models is robust against arbitrary local perturbations of the Hamiltonian. Finally, we argue that these results may be extended to characterize localization-protected fracton topological order in excited states of disordered fracton models.Comment: published versio

BPS Microstates and the Open Topological String Wave Function

It has recently been conjectured that the closed topological string wave function computes a grand canonical partition function of BPS black hole states in 4 dimensions: Z_BH=|psi_top|^2. We conjecture that the open topological string wave function also computes a grand canonical partition function, which sums over black holes bound to BPS excitations on D-branes wrapping cycles of the internal Calabi-Yau: Z^open_BPS=|psi^open_top|^2. This conjecture is verified in the case of Type IIA on a local Calabi-Yau threefold involving a Riemann surface, where the degeneracies of BPS states can be computed in q-deformed 2-dimensional Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 50 pages, LaTe

Comments on the Chern-Simons photon term in the QED description of graphene

We revisit the Coleman-Hill theorem in the context of reduced planar QED. Using the global U(1) Ward identity for this non-local but still gauge invariant theory, we can confirm that the topological piece of the photon self-energy at zero momentum does not receive further quantum corrections apart from the potential one-loop contribution, even when considering the Lorentz non-invariant case due to the Fermi velocity $v_F<c$. This is of relevance to probe possible time parity odd dynamics in a planar sheet of graphene which has an effective description in terms of $(2+1)$-dimensional planar reduced QED.Comment: New section added, published versio

Wilson Loops in Non-Compact U(1) Gauge Theories at Criticality

We study the properties of Wilson loops in three dimensional non-compact U(1) gauge theories with global abelian symmetries. We use duality in the continuum and on the lattice, to argue that close to the critical point between the Higgs and Coulomb phases, all correlators of the Wilson loops are periodic functions of the Wilson loop charge, Q. The period depends on the global symmetry of the theory, which determines the magnetic flux carried by the dual particles. For single flavour scalar electrodynamics, the emergent period is Q = 1. In the general case of N complex scalars with a U(1)^{N-1} global symmetry, the period is Q = N. We also give some arguments why this phenomenon does not generalize to theories with a full non-abelian SU(N) symmetry, where no periodicity in Q is expected. Implications for lattice simulations, as well as for physical systems, such as easy plane antiferromagnets and disordered superfluids, are noted.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figur

Pure-spinor superstrings in d=2,4,6

We continue the study of the d=2,4,6 pure-spinor superstring models introduced in [1]. By explicitly solving the pure-spinor constraint we show that these theories have vanishing central charge and work out the (covariant) current algebra for the Lorentz currents. We argue that these super-Poincare covariant models may be thought of as compactifications of the superstring on CY_{4,3,2}, and take some steps toward making this precise by constructing a map to the RNS superstring variables. We also discuss the relation to the so called hybrid superstrings, which describe the same type of compactifications.Comment: 27 page

Black Holes in Type IIA String on Calabi-Yau Threefolds with Affine ADE Geometries and q-Deformed 2d Quiver Gauge Theories

Motivated by studies on 4d black holes and q-deformed 2d Yang Mills theory, and borrowing ideas from compact geometry of the blowing up of affine ADE singularities, we build a class of local Calabi-Yau threefolds (CY^{3}) extending the local 2-torus model \mathcal{O}(m)\oplus \mathcal{O}(-m)\to T^{2\text{}} considered in hep-th/0406058 to test OSV conjecture. We first study toric realizations of T^{2} and then build a toric representation of X_{3} using intersections of local Calabi-Yau threefolds \mathcal{O}(m)\oplus \mathcal{O}(-m-2)\to \mathbb{P}^{1}. We develop the 2d \mathcal{N}=2 linear \sigma-model for this class of toric CY^{3}s. Then we use these local backgrounds to study partition function of 4d black holes in type IIA string theory and the underlying q-deformed 2d quiver gauge theories. We also make comments on 4d black holes obtained from D-branes wrapping cycles in \mathcal{O}(\mathbf{m}) \oplus \mathcal{O}(\mathbf{-m-2}%) \to \mathcal{B}_{k} with \mathbf{m=}(m_{1},...,m_{k}) a k-dim integer vector and \mathcal{B}_{k} a compact complex one dimension base consisting of the intersection of k 2-spheres S_{i}^{2} with generic intersection matrix I_{ij}. We give as well the explicit expression of the q-deformed path integral measure of the partition function of the 2d quiver gauge theory in terms of I_{ij}.Comment: 36 pages, latex, 9 figures. References adde