Emergent Higgsless Superconductivity

We present a new Higgsless model of superconductivity, inspired from anyon superconductivity but P- and T-invariant and generalizable to any dimension. While the original anyon superconductivity mechanism was based on incompressible quantum Hall fluids as average field states, our mechanism involves topological insulators as average field states. In D space dimensions it involves a (D-1)-form fictitious pseudovector gauge field which originates from the condensation of topological defects in compact low-energy effective BF theories. There is no massive Higgs scalar as there is no local order parameter. When electromagnetism is switched on, the photon acquires mass by the topological BF mechanism. Although the charge of the gapless mode (2) and the topological order (4) are the same as those of the standard Higgs model, the two models of superconductivity are clearly different since the origins of the gap, reflected in the high-energy sectors are totally different. In 2D this type of superconductivity is explicitly realized as global superconductivity in Josephson junction arrays. In 3D this model predicts a possible phase transition from topological insulators to Higgsless superconductors.Comment: Prepared for the proceedings of the XII Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, 29 August to 3 September 2016, Thessaloniki, Greece. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1408.506

Higgsless superconductivity from topological defects in compact BF terms

We present a new Higgsless model of superconductivity, inspired from anyon superconductivity but P- and T-invariant and generalizable to any dimension. While the original anyon superconductivity mechanism was based on incompressible quantum Hall fluids as average field states, our mechanism involves topological insulators as average field states. In D space dimensions it involves a (D-1)-form fictitious pseudovector gauge field which originates from the condensation of topological defects in compact low-energy effective BF theories. In the average field approximation, the corresponding uniform emergent charge creates a gap for the (D-2)-dimensional branes via the Magnus force, the dual of the Lorentz force. One particular combination of intrinsic and emergent charge fluctuations that leaves the total charge distribution invariant constitutes an isolated gapless mode leading to superfluidity. The remaining massive modes organise themselves into a D-dimensional charged, massive vector. There is no massive Higgs scalar as there is no local order parameter. When electromagnetism is switched on, the photon acquires mass by the topological BF mechanism. Although the charge of the gapless mode (2) and the topological order (4) are the same as those of the standard Higgs model, the two models of superconductivity are clearly different since the origins of the gap, reflected in the high-energy sectors are totally different. In 2D this type of superconductivity is explicitly realized as global superconductivity in Josephson junction arrays. In 3D this model predicts a possible phase transition from topological insulators to Higgsless superconductors.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Duality and Confinement in Massive Antisymmetric Tensor Gauge Theories

We extend the duality between massive and topologically massive antisymmetric tensor gauge theories in arbitrary space-time dimensions to include topological defects. We show explicitly that the condensation of these defects leads, in 4 dimensions, to confinement of electric strings in the two dual models. The dual phase, in which magnetic strings are confined is absent. The presence of the confinement phase explicitely found in the 4-dimensional case, is generalized, using duality arguments, to arbitrary space-time dimensions

From topological insulators to superconductors and Confinement

Topological matter in 3D is characterized by the presence of a topological BF term in its long-distance effective action. We show that, in 3D, there is another marginal term that must be added to the action in order to fully determine the physical content of the model. The quantum phase structure is governed by three parameters that drive the condensation of topological defects: the BF coupling, the electric permittivity and the magnetic permeability of the material. For intermediate levels of electric permittivity and magnetic permeability the material is a topological insulator. We predict, however, new states of matter when these parameters cross critical values: a topological superconductor when electric permittivity is increased and magnetic permeability is lowered and a charge confinement phase in the opposite case of low electric permittivity and high magnetic permeability. Synthetic topological matter may be fabricated as 3D arrays of Josephson junctions.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, few references added, typos corrected and few comments adde

QCD-Like Behaviour of High-Temperature Confining Strings

We show that, contrary to previous string models, the high-temperature behaviour of the recently proposed confining strings reproduces exactly the correct large-N QCD result, a {\it necessary} condition for any string model of confinement