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arXiv · hep-th/0507118

Quantum ether: photons and electrons from a rotor model

Michael Levin·Xiao-Gang Wen
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Abstract

We give an example of a purely bosonic model -- a rotor model on the 3D cubic lattice -- whose low energy excitations behave like massless U(1) gauge bosons and massless Dirac fermions. This model can be viewed as a ``quantum ether'': a medium that gives rise to both photons and electrons. It illustrates a general mechanism for the emergence of gauge bosons and fermions known as ``string-net condensation.'' Other, more complex, string-net condensed models can have excitations that behave like gluons, quarks and other particles in the standard model. This suggests that photons, electrons and other elementary particles may have a unified origin: string-net condensation in our vacuum.

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Michael Levin, Xiao-Gang Wen. 2007-02-13. Quantum ether: photons and electrons from a rotor model. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.73.035122

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