Lifshitz gauge duality

TL;DR

This paper derives a gauge dual for the Lifshitz model, providing a clear field theory framework that captures its phases, topological defects, and phase transitions related to restricted mobility and fractonic behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a fractonic gauge dual for the Lifshitz model, offering a novel field theoretic approach to its phases and Higgs transitions.

Findings

Efficient encoding of dipole-conserving charges and vortex defects.

Clear field theoretic description of the three phases.

Field formulation of two-stage Higgs transitions.

Abstract

Motivated by a variety of realizations of the compact Lifshitz model I derive its fractonic gauge dual. The resulting U(1) vector gauge theory efficiently and robustly encodes the restricted mobility of its dipole conserving charged matter and the corresponding topological vortex defects. The gauge theory provides a transparent formulation of the three phases of the Lifshitz model and gives a field theoretic formulation of the associated two-stage Higgs transitions.