A quantum liquid with deconfined fractional excitations in three dimensions

Abstract

Excitations which carry "fractional" quantum numbers are known to exist in one dimension in polyacetylene, and in two dimensions, in the fractional quantum Hall effect. Fractional excitations have also been invoked to explain the breakdown of the conventional theory of metals in a wide range of three-dimensional materials. However the existence of fractional excitations in three dimensions remains highly controversial. In this Letter we report direct numerical evidence for the existence of a quantum liquid phase supporting fractional excitations in a concrete, three-dimensional microscopic model - the quantum dimer model on a diamond lattice. We demonstrate explicitly that the energy cost of separating fractional monomer excitations vanishes in this liquid phase, and that its energy spectrum matches that of the Coulomb phase in (3+1) dimensional quantum electrodynamics.

4 pages, 4 figures; revised version, new figures; accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (6)

• Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice
• Pyrochlore Photons: The U(1) Spin Liquid in a S=1/2 Three-Dimensional Frustrated Magnet
• Three dimensional resonating valence bond liquids and their excitations
• Unusual liquid state of hard-core bosons on the pyrochlore lattice
• Correlations and order parameter at a Coulomb-crystal phase transition in a three-dimensional dimer model
• Mixed Columnar-Plaquette Crystal of correlated fermions on the 2D pyrochlore lattice at fractional filling

Cited by in corpus (33)

• Quantum Spin Ice: A Search for Gapless Quantum Spin Liquids in Pyrochlore Magnets
• The "Coulomb phase" in frustrated systems
• Seeing the light : experimental signatures of emergent electromagnetism in a quantum spin ice
• Quantum Ice : a quantum Monte Carlo study
• Magnetic-Moment Fragmentation and Monopole Crystallization
• Strongly correlated fermions on a kagome lattice
• Nematic, vector-multipole, and plateau-liquid states in the classical O(3) pyrochlore antiferromagnet with biquadratic interactions in applied magnetic field
• Fractionally charged topological point defects on the kagome lattice
• Extended quantum U(1)-liquid phase in a three-dimensional quantum dimer model
• Topological Sector Fluctuations and Curie Law Crossover in Spin Ice
• A phase diagram for a topological Kondo insulating system
• Of chain-based order and quantum spin liquids in dipolar spin ice
• Fragmentation in Frustrated Magnets -- A review
• Symmetry Breaking on the Three-Dimensional Hyperkagome Lattice of Na_4Ir_3O_8
• Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis in quantum dimer models
• Classical and quantum theories of proton disorder in hexagonal water ice
• Fractionalized charge excitations in a spin liquid on partially-filled pyrochlore lattice
• Spin-wave analysis of the transverse-field Ising model on the checkerboard lattice
• Monopole holes in a partially ordered spin liquid
• Semi-classical Approach to Quantum Spin Ice
• Quantum spin ice in three-dimensional Rydberg atom arrays
• Fermionic quantum dimer and fully-packed loop models on the square lattice
• Re-entrance effect in the high-temperature critical phase of the quantum dimer model on the square lattice
• Exploring Bosonic and Fermionic Link Models on $(3+1)-$d tubes
• Magnetic field and thermal Hall effect in a pyrochlore U(1) quantum spin liquid
• The Néel-VBS transition in three-dimensional SU($N$) antiferromagnets
• Spin structure factor and thermodynamics in the antiferromagnetic quantum Ising model in the pyrochlore lattice
• Frustrated antiferromagnetic honeycomb-tunnel-like lattice CuRE2Ge2O8 (RE=Pr, Nd, Sm, and Eu)
• Quantum Kasteleyn transition
• Generalised route to effective field theories for quantum systems with local constraints
• Coupling quantum spin ice to matter on the centered pyrochlore lattice
• Geometric fragmentation and anomalous thermalization in cubic dimer model
• Disorder from disorder and confinement in the quantum Ising model in the pyrochlore lattice