Dual gauge theory formulation of planar quasicrystal elasticity and fractons

TL;DR

This paper develops a gauge theory framework for planar quasicrystal elasticity, incorporating topological defects as fractons and analyzing defect interactions, advancing the theoretical understanding of quasicrystal mechanics.

Contribution

It introduces a dual gauge theory formulation for quasicrystal elasticity, including a novel interpretation of defects as fractons and calculations of defect interactions.

Findings

Topological defects in quasicrystals can be modeled as fractonic excitations.

The static interaction potential between defects is derived for fivefold symmetric quasicrystals.

The gauge theory formulation captures phonon and phason degrees of freedom in a unified framework.

Abstract

Elastic description of planar quasicrystals can be formulated as an interplay between two Goldstone fields corresponding to phonon and phason degrees of freedom. We reformulate this description as a gauge theory with one gauge field that is symmetric under exchange of indices and one that is not. We also show which topological defects in quasicrystals can be succinctly incorporated in the dual description and interpret them as fractonic excitations. Finally we calculate the static interaction potential between defects in a quasicrystal with fivefold symmetry. This is done in the limit of a small coupling between phonon and phason stresses.