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arXiv · 1711.00863

From Bosonic Topological Transition to Symmetric Fermion Mass Generation

Yi-Zhuang You·Yin-Chen He·Ashvin Vishwanath·Cenke Xu
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Abstract

The bosonic topological transition (BTT) is a quantum critical point between the bosonic symmetry protected topological phase and the trivial phase. In this work, we derive a description of this transition in terms of compact quantum electrodynamics (QED) with four fermion flavors ($N_f=4$). This allows us to describe the transition in a lattice model with the maximal microscopic symmetry: an internal SO(4) symmetry. Within a systematic renormalization group analysis, we identify the critical point with the desired O(4) emergent symmetry and all expected deformations. By lowering the microscopic symmetry we recover the previous $N_f=2$ non-compact QED description of the BTT. Finally, by merging two BTTs we recover a previously discussed theory of symmetric mass generation, as an SU(2) quantum chromodynamics-Higgs theory with $N_f=4$ flavors of SU(2) fundamental fermions and one SU(2) fundamental Higgs boson. This provides a consistency check on both theories.

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Yi-Zhuang You, Yin-Chen He, Ashvin Vishwanath, Cenke Xu. 2017-11-02. From Bosonic Topological Transition to Symmetric Fermion Mass Generation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.97.125112

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