Deconfining the rotational Goldstone mode: the superconducting nematic liquid crystal in 2+1D

Abstract

The Goldstone theorem states that there should be a massless mode for each spontaneously broken symmetry generator. There is no such rotational mode in crystals, however superconducting quantum nematics should carry rotational Goldstone modes. By generalization of thermal 2D defect mediated melting theory into a 2+1D quantum duality, the emergence of the rotational mode at the quantum phase transition from the solid to the nematic arises as a deconfinement phenomenon, with the unusual property that the stiffness of the rotational mode originates entirely in the dual dislocation condensate.

5 pages

References in corpus (6)

• Electronic liquid crystal state in the high-temperature superconductor YBCO(6.45)
• Redundancies in Nambu-Goldstone Bosons
• Smectics: Symmetry Breaking, Singularities, and Surfaces
• Observing the fluctuating stripes in high Tc superconductors
• Nematic phases and the breaking of double symmetries
• The quantum smectic as a dislocation Higgs phase

Cited by in corpus (8)

• An Introduction to Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking
• Dual gauge field theory of quantum liquid crystals in two dimensions
• Dual gauge field theory of quantum liquid crystals in three dimensions
• Lie-algebraic classification of effective theories with enhanced soft limits
• Classification of nematic order in 2+1D: Dislocation melting and $O(2)/Z_N$ lattice gauge theory
• Condensation of Lattice Defects and Melting Transitions in Quantum Hall phases
• Crystal gravity
• Quantum black holes as classical space factories