Electric–magnetic duality of lattice systems with topological order

We investigate the duality structure of quantum lattice systems with topological order, a collective order also appearing in fractional quantum Hall systems. We define electromagnetic (EM) duality for all of Kitaev?s quantum double models based on discrete gauge theories with Abelian and non-Abelian groups, and identify its natural habitat as a new class of topological models based on Hopf algebras. We interpret these as extended string-net models, whereupon Levin and Wen?s string-nets, which describe all intrinsic topological orders on the lattice with parity and time-reversal invariance, arise as magnetic and electric projections of the extended models. We conjecture that all string-net models can be extended in an analogous way, using more general algebraic and tensor-categorical structures, such that EM duality continues to hold. We also identify this EM duality with an invertible domain wall. Physical applications include topology measurements in the form of pairs of dual tensor networks.     

The bond-algebraic approach to dualities

An algebraic theory of dualities is developed based on the notion of bond algebras. It deals with classical and quantum dualities in a unified fashion explaining the precise connection between quantum dualities and the low temperature (strong-coupling)/high temperature (weak-coupling) dualities of classical statistical mechanics (or (Euclidean) path integrals). Its range of applications includes discrete lattice, continuum field and gauge theories. Dualities are revealed to be local, structure-preserving mappings between model-specific bond algebras that can be implemented as unitary transformations, or partial isometries if gauge symmetries are involved. This characterization permits us to search systematically for dualities and self-dualities in quantum models of arbitrary system size, dimensionality and complexity, and any classical model admitting a transfer matrix or operator representation. In particular, special dualities such as exact dimensional reduction, emergent and gauge-reducing dualities that solve gauge constraints can be easily understood in terms of mappings of bond algebras. As a new example, we show that the ?₂ Higgs model is dual to the extended toric code model in any number of dimensions. Non-local transformations such as dual variables and Jordan–Wigner dictionaries are algorithmically derived from the local mappings of bond algebras. This permits us to establish a precise connection between quantum dual and classical disorder variables. Our bond-algebraic approach goes beyond the standard approach to classical dualities, and could help resolve the long-standing problem of obtaining duality transformations for lattice non-Abelian models. As an illustration, we present new dualities in any spatial dimension for the quantum Heisenberg model. Finally, we discuss various applications including location of phase boundaries, spectral behavior and, notably, we show how bond-algebraic dualities help constrain and realize fermionization in an arbitrary number of spatial dimensions.     

Yang-Mills theory in three dimensions as a quantum gravity theory

We perform the dual transformation of theYang-Mills theory in three dimensions using the Wilson action on the cubic lattice. The dual lattice is made of tetrahedra triangulating a 3-dimensional curved manifold but which is embedded into a flat 6-dimensional space [for the SU(2) gauge group]. In the continuum limit, the theory can be reformulated in terms of 6-component gauge-invariant scalar fields having the meaning of the external coordinates of the dual lattice sites. These 6-component fields induce a metric and a curvature of the 3-dimensional dual-color space. The Yang-Mills theory can also be rewritten as a quantum gravity theory with the Einstein-Hilbert action but with a purely imaginary Newton constant plus a homogeneous “ether” term. The theory can be formulated in a gauge-invariant and local form without explicit color degrees of freedom.     

Theories of quark confinement

It is conjectured that a non-Abelian gauge theory based on the color SU(3) group will confine quarks. Various techniques that have been applied to this question are reviewed. These include approximate methods based on strong coupling expansions of Hamiltonian and Euclidian lattice theories, instanton improvements on perturbation theory, and solutions of truncated Dyson-Schwinger equations for the gauge field propagator. Formal results based on electric-magnetic duality arguments and on the study of loop field theories are presented. Deconfinement at high temperatures, the inclusion of light quarks, and a possible reconciliation with a hypothetical discovery of free quarks are discussed.     

Algebraic vortex liquid in spin-1/2 triangular antiferromagnets: scenario for Cs2CuCl4

Motivated by inelastic neutron scattering data on Cs2CuCl4, we explore spin-1/2 triangular lattice antiferromagnets with both spatial and easy-plane exchange anisotropies, the latter due to an observed Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Exploiting a duality mapping followed by a fermionization of the dual vortex degrees of freedom, we find a novel critical spin-liquid phase described in terms of Dirac fermions with an emergent global SU(4) symmetry minimally coupled to a noncompact U(1) gauge field. This "algebraic vortex liquid" supports gapless spin excitations and universal power-law correlations in the dynamical spin structure factor which are consistent with those observed in Cs2CuCl4. We suggest future neutron scattering experiments that should help distinguish between the algebraic vortex liquid and other spin liquids and quantum critical points previously proposed in the context of Cs2CuCl4.     

Constraints on the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator in Yang-Mills theories

We present rigorous upper and lower bounds for the zero-momentum gluon propagator D(0) of Yang-Mills theories in terms of the average value of the gluon field. This allows us to perform a controlled extrapolation of lattice data to infinite volume, showing that the infrared limit of the Landau-gauge gluon propagator in SU(2) gauge theory is finite and nonzero in three and in four space-time dimensions. In the two-dimensional case, we find D(0)=0, in agreement with Maas. We suggest an explanation for these results. We note that our discussion is general, although we apply our analysis only to pure gauge theory in the Landau gauge. Simulations have been performed on the IBM supercomputer at the University of S?o Paulo.     

Brane tilings and reflexive polygons

Reflexive polygons have attracted great interest both in mathematics and in physics. This paper discusses a new aspect of the existing study in the context of quiver gauge theories. These theories are 4d supersymmetric worldvolume theories of D3 branes with toric Calabi‐Yau moduli spaces that are conveniently described with brane tilings. We find all 30 theories corresponding to the 16 reflexive polygons, some of the theories being toric (Seiberg) dual to each other. The mesonic generators of the moduli spaces are identified through the Hilbert series. It is shown that the lattice of generators is the dual reflexive polygon of the toric diagram. Thus, the duality forms pairs of quiver gauge theories with the lattice of generators being the toric diagram of the dual and vice versa.     

Monopole condensation and color confinement

Monopole condensation is responsible for confinement in U(1) lattice gauge theory. Using numerical simulations and the abelian projection, we demonstrate that this mechanism persists in SU(2) nonabelian gauge theories. Our results support the picture of the QCD vacuum as a dual superconductor.     

Noncommutative Supergeometry and Duality

We introduce a notion of Q-algebra that can be considered as a generalization of the notion of Q-manifold (a supermanifold equipped with an odd vector field obeying {Q,Q} =0). We develop the theory of connections on modules over Q-algebras and prove a general duality theorem for gauge theories on such modules. This theorem contains as a simplest case SO(d,d, Z)-duality of gauge theories on noncommutative tori.     

Phase structure of a U(1) lattice gauge theory with dual gauge fields

We introduce a U(1) lattice gauge theory with dual gauge fields and study its phase structure. This system is partly motivated by unconventional superconductors like extended s-wave and d  -wave superconductors in the strongly-correlated electron systems and also studies of the t–J$t\text{–}J$ model in the slave-particle representation. In this theory, the “Cooper-pair” (or RVB spinon-pair) field is put on links of a cubic lattice due to strong on-site repulsion between original electrons in contrast to the ordinary s  -wave pair field on sites. This pair field behaves as a gauge field dual to the U(1) gauge field coupled with the hopping of electrons or quasi-particles of the t–J$t\text{–}J$ model, holons and spinons. By Monte Carlo simulations we study this lattice gauge model and find a first-order phase transition from the normal state to the Higgs (superconducting) phase. Each gauge field works as a Higgs field for the other gauge field. This mechanism requires no scalar fields in contrast to the ordinary Higgs mechanism. An explicit microscopic model is introduced, the low-energy effective theory of which is viewed as a special case of the present model.     

On the nature of the phase transition in a class of lattice gauge theories

We investigate the connection between the phase transition recently found by Anthony in a variant of SU(2) lattice gauge theory and various mechanisms known to produce phase transitions in lattice gauge theories.     

Universality of the string picture in lattice gauge systems

We test the conjecture that the infrared behaviour of gauge theories is described by an effective string picture by analyzing the Monte Carlo data of five different three- and four-dimensional lattice gauge systems, SU(2) and SU(3) included. We find that there is a unique string of fermionic type which fits well to the whole set of analyzed data.     

Finite temperature SU(2) lattice gauge theory

We discuss SU(2) lattice gauge theories at non-zero temperature and prove several rigorous results including i) the absence of confinement for sufficiently high temperature in the pure gauge theory, and ii) the absence of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking for sufficiently high temperature in the theory with massless fundamental representation fermions.     

Definite Integral Expression of the SU(3) One-Link Integral

A definite integral expression of the SU(3) one-link partition function invariant group integral in the weak coupling regions of lattice gauge theories is obtained by the steepest descent meth.od. The integral can be numerically evaluated easily. This method can be extended to evaluation of some related SU(3) group integrals in the lattice gauge theories.     

String Geometry and the Noncommutative Torus

We construct a new gauge theory on a pair of d-dimensional noncommutative tori. The latter comes from an intimate relationship between the noncommutative geometry associated with a lattice vertex operator algebra ? and the noncommutative torus. We show that the tachyon algebra of ? is naturally isomorphic to a class of twisted modules representing quantum deformations of the algebra of functions on the torus. We construct the corresponding real spectral triples and determine their Morita equivalence classes using string duality arguments. These constructions yield simple proofs of the O(d,d;ℤ) Morita equivalences between d-dimensional noncommutative tori and give a natural physical interpretation of them in terms of the target space duality group of toroidally compactified string theory. We classify the automorphisms of the twisted modules and construct the most general gauge theory which is invariant under the automorphism group. We compute bosonic and fermionic actions associated with these gauge theories and show that they are explicitly duality-symmetric. The duality-invariant gauge theory is manifestly covariant but contains highly non-local interactions. We show that it also admits a new sort of particle-antiparticle duality which enables the construction of instanton field configurations in any dimension. The duality non-symmetric on-shell projection of the field theory is shown to coincide with the standard non-abelian Yang–Mills gauge theory minimally coupled to massive Dirac fermion fields. Received: 26 October 1998/ Accepted: 9 April 1999     

Noncommutative supergeometry, duality and deformations

Following Lett. Math. Phys. 50 (1999) 309, we introduce a notion of Q-algebra that can be considered as a generalization of the notion of Q-manifold (a supermanifold equipped with an odd vector field obeying {Q,Q}=0). We develop the theory of connections on modules over Q-algebras and prove a general duality theorem for gauge theories on such modules. This theorem containing as a simplest case SO(d,d,Z)-duality of gauge theories on noncommutative tori can be applied also in more complicated situations. We show that Q-algebras appear naturally in Fedosov construction of formal deformation of commutative algebras of functions and that similar Q-algebras can be constructed also in the case when the deformation parameter is not formal.     

Universality of the continuum limit of lattice quantum theories

The lattice approximation of the naïve continuum action in quantum mechanics or in field theory is not uniquely determined. We investigate to what extent corrections to the lattice action, which vanish in the naïve continuum limit, affect the continuum limit when taking quantum fluctuations into account. In the quantum mechanical case, modifications of the lattice action may induce non-trivial corrections to the potential of the system and thereby change the structure of the theory completely. We verify this statement analytically as well as numerically by performing a Monte Carlo simulation. In the field theoretical case we argue that the lattice corrections considered do not affect the physics of the continuum limit, at least not for asymptotically free gauge field theories. In four dimensions, one might encounter finite renormalization of CP violating terms.     

Strong coupling expansions for the mass gap in lattice gauge theories

We derive strong coupling expansions for the mass gap in euclidean lattice gauge theories in any space-time dimension. For gauge groups SU(2), SU(3), Z₂ and Z₃ the series are calculated up to order g^?16. They are used to get rough estimates for the lowest glueball mass in continuum SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories, assuming a sudden crossover from strong to weak coupling behaviour in the lattice theory.     

Duality transformations for general abelian systems

We describe the general structure of duality transformations for a very broad set of abelian statistical and field theoretic systems. This includes theories with many different types of fields and a large variety of kinds of interactions including, but not limited to nearest neighbor, next nearest neighbor, multi-spin interactions, etc. We find that the dual form of a theory does not depend directly on the dimensionality of the theory, but rather on the number of fields and number of different kinds of interactions. The dual forms we find have a generalized gauge symmetry and possess the usual property of having a temperature (or coupling constant) which is inverted from that of the original theory. Our results reduce to the well-known results in those particular cases that have heretofore been studied. Our procedure also suggests variations capable of generating other forms of the dual theory which may be useful in various specific cases.     

Extended-natural gauge models and complementarity

We propose a new condition “extended naturalness” which should be satisfied by any physically sensible gauge theory. In order that a theory is extended-natural, all discrete quantities observed in low energies must be stable against variations of discrete parameters of the theory defined in large mass scales. We find that SU(N) gauge models become extended-natural when we choose appropriate fermion representations. Further, if N is a multiple of 8, the models turn out to be good examples of complementary gauge theories.