Field Theory of Borromean Super-counterfluids

Abstract

We introduce a class of dynamical field theories for $N$-component "Borromean" ($N\ge 3$) super-counterfluid order, naturally formulated in terms of inter-species bosonic fields ${\psi }_{\alpha \beta }$. Their condensation breaks the normal-state [U(1)]${}^N$ symmetry down to its diagonal U(1) subgroup, thereby encoding the arrest of the net superflow. This approach broadens our understanding of dynamical properties of super-counterfluids, at low energies capturing its universal properties, phase transition, counterflow vortices, and many of its other properties. Such super-counterfluid strikingly exhibits $N$ distinct flavors of energetically stable elementary vortex solutions, despite ${\mathbb{Z}}^{N-1}$ homotopy group of its $N-1$ independent Goldstone modes, with $N-1$ topologically distinct elementary vortex types, obeying modular arithmetic. The model leads to Borromean hydrodynamics as a low-energy theory, reveals counteflow AC Josephson effect, and generically predicts a first-order character of the phase transitions into Borromean super-counterfluid state in dimensions greater than two.

5 pages, no figures

References in corpus (12)

• A superconductor to superfluid phase transition in liquid metallic hydrogen
• Quartic metal: Spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry due to four-fermion correlations in Ba${}_{1-x}$K${}_x$Fe${}_2$As${}_2$
• Field- and temperature induced topological phase transitions in the three-dimensional $N$-component London superconductor
• The dipolar Bose-Hubbard model
• Volume-preserving diffeomorphism as nonabelian higher-rank gauge symmetry
• Preemptive vortex-loop proliferation in multicomponent interacting Bose--Einstein condensates
• Magnetic phases and transitions of the two-species Bose-Hubbard model
• Calorimetric evidence for two phase transitions in Ba${}_{1-\mathrm{x}}$K${}_{\mathrm{x}}$Fe${}_2$As${}_2$ with fermion pairing and quadrupling states
• Observation of counterflow superfluidity in a two-component Mott insulator
• Breakdown of counterflow superfluidity in a disordered quantum Hall bilayer
• Strongly Interacting Two-component Coupled Bose Gas in Optical Lattices
• Borromean supercounterfluids at finite temperatures