arXiv subjects

Aleksander Głódkowski

Publications and source records attributed to Aleksander Głódkowski.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Effective theories for many-body systems with nonuniform symmetries

The low-energy dynamics of many-body systems is governed by gapless modes whose properties are dictated by symmetry. Their existence follows from Goldstone's theorem, while their effective description at zero temperature is determined by the pattern of symmetry breaking. At finite temperature, an analogous role is played by hydrodynamics, which describes the universal behavior of many-body systems over long times and large distances. These principles are well understood for uniform symmetries, which act homogeneously in spacetime and lead to a correspondence between massless Goldstone modes and broken generators, as well as gapless hydrodynamic modes and conserved charges. However, this simple picture changes in the presence of nonuniform symmetries, whose generators do not commute with spacetime translations. The low-energy implications of these symmetries remain less understood, as they do not introduce additional gapless modes but instead constrain the dynamics of the existing degrees of freedom. In this thesis, we develop a unified framework for many-body systems with nonuniform symmetries and show that their effects can be understood in terms of additional fields that are not independent at low energies and can be eliminated, leading to kinematic constraints that reshape the infrared dynamics. In systems with spontaneous symmetry breaking, this mechanism modifies the effective theory and often softens the dispersion relations of the remaining modes. At finite temperature, it manifests in hydrodynamics as constraints on macroscopic currents. As a result, nonuniform symmetries give rise to qualitatively new physical phenomena, including modified spectra of collective excitations, exemplified by transverse Tkachenko oscillations in quantum vortex crystals, and unconventional transport phenomena, such as anomalously slow diffusion and softened sound modes in dipole-conserving systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2026

Geometric pairing of Nambu--Goldstone modes in spacetime symmetry breaking

We identify a geometric pairing mechanism in systems with spontaneously broken spacetime symmetries, whereby pairs of Goldstone fields become canonically conjugate and hybridize into a single type-B Nambu--Goldstone mode (NGM). The mechanism originates from deformations of the local spacetime volume element induced by Goldstone fluctuations, which endow the Goldstone manifold with a Berry curvature. Integrating this pairing with existing reductions, we propose a general counting formula for the number of gapless NGMs in many-body systems. We demonstrate the mechanism in a microscopic model of a two-component Bose--Einstein condensate, where the dilaton and the $U(1)$ Goldstone field combine into a single NGM with quadratic dispersion.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

A complex scalar field theory for charged fluids, superfluids, and fracton fluids

We propose a field-theoretic framework for ideal hydrodynamics of charged relativistic fluids formulated in terms of a complex scalar field defined on a spacelike hypersurface comoving with the fluid. In the normal phase, the dynamics of charge-carrying fluids is constrained by the restrictive chemical shift symmetry, which locks charges to fixed positions in the comoving plane as they are transported through space by the fluid's motion. On the other hand, in the superfluid phase, the chemical shift symmetry is relaxed to a constant shift, allowing charges to redistribute freely across the comoving hypersurface. We demonstrate that both models recover the respective nonlinear hydrodynamic equations and provide explicit expressions for the collective variables of hydrodynamics in terms of the theory's fields. Introduced models provide a UV completion to the effective field theories of hydrodynamics constructed in terms of the Goldstone fields. Finally, we propose a relativistic fracton fluid phase as a natural interpolation between the normal and superfluid phases, in which the mobility of elementary charges is constrained by a linear shift symmetry in the comoving space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

Effective field theory for the superfluid vortex lattice from coset construction

Guided by symmetry principles, we construct an effective field theory that captures the long-wavelength dynamics of two-dimensional vortex crystals observed in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in a harmonic potential. By embedding the system into Newton--Cartan spacetime and analyzing its isometries, we identify the appropriate spacetime symmetry group for trapped condensates at finite angular momentum. After introducing a coarse-grained description of the vortex lattice we consider a homogeneous equilibrium configuration and discuss the associated symmetry breaking pattern. We apply the coset construction method to identify covariant structures that enter the effective action and discuss the physical interpretation of the inverse Higgs constraints. We verify that Kohn's theorem is satisfied within our construction and subsequently focus on the gapless sector of the theory. In this regime, the effective theory accommodates a single gapless excitation--the Tkachenko mode--for which we construct both the leading-order and next-to-leading-order actions, the latter including cubic interaction terms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Quadrupole gauge theory: anti-Higgs mechanism and elastic dual

Motivated by the duality between elasticity and fracton gauge theory, we study an extension of the gauge group that includes the quadrupole moment. Remarkably, we find that spontaneous breaking of the quadrupole symmetry increases the number of massless excitations. This result appears to challenge the well-established paradigm, according to which gauge fields acquire mass through the Higgs mechanism, and the would-be Goldstone bosons are rendered massive. We refer to this phenomenon as the anti-Higgs mechanism. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the quadrupole gauge theory is dual to an exotic class of elastic systems, which we dub incompressible crystals. The anti-Higgs mechanism in the dual theory corresponds to a phase transition from the incompressible crystal state to an ordinary (compressible) solid.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2024

Dissipative fracton superfluids

We present a comprehensive study of hydrodynamic theories for superfluids with dipole symmetry. Taking diffusion as an example, we systematically construct a hydrodynamic framework that incorporates an intrinsic dipole degree of freedom in analogy to spin density in micropolar (spinful) fluids. Subsequently, we study a dipole condensed phase and propose a model that captures the spontaneous breaking of the $U(1)$ charge. The theory explains the role of the inverse Higgs constraint for this class of theories, and naturally generates the gapless field. Next, we introduce finite temperature theory using the Hamiltonian formalism and study the hydrodynamics of ideal fracton superfluids. Finally, we postulate a derivative counting scheme and incorporate dissipative effects using the method of irreversible thermodynamics. We verify the consistency of the dispersion relations and argue that our counting is systematic.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Hydrodynamics of dipole-conserving fluids

Dipole-conserving fluids serve as examples of kinematically constrained systems that can be understood on the basis of symmetry. They are known to display various exotic features including glassylike dynamics, subdiffusive transport, and immobile excitations dubbed fractons. Unfortunately, such systems have so far escaped a complete macroscopic formulation as viscous fluids. In this work, we construct a consistent hydrodynamic description for fluids invariant under translation, rotation, and dipole shift symmetry. We use symmetry principles to formulate a thermodynamic theory for dipole-conserving systems at equilibrium and apply irreversible thermodynamics in order to elucidate dissipative effects. Remarkably, we find that the inclusion of the energy conservation not only renders the longitudinal modes diffusive rather than subdiffusive but also diffusion is present even at the lowest order in the derivative expansion. This work paves the way towards an effective description of many-body systems with constrained dynamics such as ensembles of topological defects, fracton phases of matter, and certain models of glasses.

cond-mat.str-el↗