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Some Examples in the Realization of Symmetry

Frank Wilczek
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Abstract

I briefly discuss three phenomena arising in recent work where the realization of symmetries in quantum mechanics is unusual. The first of these is, I believe, the very simplest realization of non-trivial confinement by a mechanism of charge-flux frustration. It arises in models having several coupled abelian Chern-Simons gauge symmetries, which closely resemble effective theories used for the quantum Hall effect. The second is symmetry obstruction by non-abelian flux, which has implications for 2+1 dimensional supergravity. Third is the possibility of new varieties of quantum statistics: non-abelian and projective.

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Frank Wilczek. 1997-10-16. Some Examples in the Realization of Symmetry. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0920-5632(98)00171-6

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