Foliation structure in fracton models

PIRSA ID: 21030000
Event Type: Seminar
Scientific Area(s):
Quantum Matter
End date:
Speaker(s):
  • Xie Chen, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)

Fracton models are characterized by an exponentially increasing ground state degeneracy and point excitations with constrained motion. In this talk, I will focus on a prototypical 3D fracton model -- the X-cube model -- and discuss how its ground state degeneracy can be understood from a foliation structure in the model. In particular, we show that there are hidden 2D topological layers in the 3D bulk. To calculate the ground state degeneracy, we can remove the layers until a minimal structure is reached. The ground state degeneracy comes from the combination of the degeneracy of the foliation layers and that associated with the minimal structure. We discuss explicitly how this works for X-cube model with periodic boundary condition, open boundary condition, and even in the presence of screw dislocation defects.