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arXiv · 2503.08621

Fracton Gauge Theories in Curved Spacetimes

Evangelos Afxonidis·Alessio Caddeo·Carlos Hoyos·Daniele Musso
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Abstract

Fractonic matter with dipole symmetry can be coupled to a two-index symmetric tensor gauge field. In this work, we show that this symmetric tensor field, along with other related generalized Maxwell theories, can be consistently coupled to curved backgrounds in a covariant and gauge-invariant way by reformulating dipole symmetry using conventional vector gauge fields. We identify a family of curved geometries where global dipole symmetry is preserved and derive energy-momentum conservation laws as Ward identities associated with background diffeomorphisms. Our results pave the way for future extensions, including generalizations to higher-order multipole theories.

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Evangelos Afxonidis, Alessio Caddeo, Carlos Hoyos, Daniele Musso. 2025-03-11. Fracton Gauge Theories in Curved Spacetimes. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08621

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