Physics Letters B 803 (2020) 135290
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Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Emergent discrete 3-form symmetry and domain walls
Yoshimasa Hidaka
a,b
, Muneto Nitta
c
, Ryo Yokokura
d,c,∗
a
Nishina Center, RIKEN, Wako 351-0198, Japan
b
RIKEN iTHEMS, RIKEN, Wako 351-0198, Japan
c
Department of Physics & Research and Education Center for Natur al Sciences, Keio University, Hiyoshi 4-1-1, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8521, Japan
d
KEK Theory Center, Tsukuba 305-0801, Japan
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 18 January 2020
Accepted 10 February 2020
Available online 13 February 2020
Editor: N. Lambert
We show that axion models with the domain wall number k in (3 + 1) dimensions, i.e., periodic scalar
field theories admitting k axion domain walls, exhibit an emergent Z
k
3-form symmetry for k > 1in
addition to a conventional Z
k
0-form symmetry. The emergent 3-form symmetry is explicitly shown by
establishing a low-energy dual transformation between the scalar field theory and a 3-form gauge theory.
We further argue that the emergent 3-form symmetry is spontaneously broken, and the breaking pattern
is so-called the type-B spontaneous symmetry breaking. We discuss similar and different points between
the phase admitting the domain walls and topologically ordered phases.
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
Classifying states of matter is one of the most important prob-
lems
in modern physics. Spontaneous symmetry breaking separat-
ing
ordered and disordered phases is one key ingredient for that
purpose, and the Ginzburg-Landau theory based on local order op-
erators
offers a ubiquitous tool. For the Ginzburg-Landau theory,
the symmetries act on local operators such as fields at points in
spacetime.
Recently, a more general notion, higher-form symmetries, was
proposed [1–3](see earlier references [4–6] and related topics [7]).
The higher p-form symmetries are symmetries under transforma-
tions
of p-dimensional non-local operators such as Wilson loops
(p = 1), world surface of vortices (p = 2), and so on. In terms of
the higher-form symmetry, more general phases can be classified
beyond the Ginzburg-Landau theory.
As applications, phases admitting topological solitons can be
classified in terms of higher-form symmetries associated to the
solitons. Here, topological solitons are classical solutions in field
theories that have topological charges. For example, fractional
quantum Hall states in (2 + 1) dimensions and s-wave supercon-
ductors
in (3 + 1) dimensions are identified as broken phases
of discrete p -form and (D − p − 1)-form symmetries [1–3]for
(D, p) = (3, 1) and (4, 1), respectively. For the s-wave supercon-
ductors,
the extended objects are a 1-form worldline and a 2-form
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hidaka@riken.jp (Y. Hidaka), nitta@phys-h.keio.ac.jp (M. Nitta),
ryokokur@post.kek.jp (R. Yokokura).
worldsheet, which represent the trajectory of an electron and an
Abrikosov–Nielsen–Olesen vortex [8,9], respectively. While both of
them have been known as topologically ordered phases because
the extended objects lead to non-trivial braiding statistics [10–13],
they can now be understood in terms of the spontaneous symme-
try
breaking.
Once the above two cases can be understood in terms of the
symmetry, they can be further classified as so-called type-B spon-
taneous
symmetry breaking [14–20], since the charged object that
is the order operator is also the symmetry generator. In particu-
lar,
the low-energy effective theories are written in the topological
quantum field theories with first-order temporal derivative terms.
For s-wave superconductors, a BF theory [21,22]is a low-energy
effective theory, which is obtained by a dual transformation of an
Abelian-Higgs model with magnetic vortices. In the BF theory, a 2-
form
gauge field couples to the magnetic vortices [23,24](see also
Ref. [25]as a recent reference). We can see that a Wilson loop and
a vortex worldsheet can have a nontrivial linking phase. A gener-
alization
to non-Abelian (color) superconductors has been recently
discussed [26–28].
One of the natural questions may be whether there exists an
ordered phase characterized by domain walls instead of vortices
in the s-wave superconductor.
1
Domain walls appear in many con-
texts
in physics, e.g., magnetic domain walls in condensed matter,
axionic domain walls in cosmology, branes in string theory. They
1
In a spin system, a topologically ordered phase due to the domain wall conden-
sation
has been discussed [29].
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2020.135290
0370-2693/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.