Phase transition on superfluid vortices in Higgs-Confinement crossover

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to identify different states of matter by examining symmetry breaking on vortices, revealing a phase transition in a Higgs-confinement crossover via Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It demonstrates spontaneous symmetry breaking on vortices as a marker for phase distinctions in a Higgs-confinement crossover, supported by numerical evidence.

Findings

Spontaneous Z2 symmetry breaking occurs in the Higgs regime.

No symmetry breaking in the confinement regime.

The phase transition is second-order, in the 2D Ising universality class.

Abstract

We propose a novel method to distinguish states of matter by identifying spontaneous symmetry breaking on extended objects, such as vortices, even in the absence of a bulk phase transition. As a specific example, we investigate the phase transition on superfluid vortices in the Higgs-confinement crossover using a $\mathrm{U}(1)_\mathrm{gauge} \times \mathrm{U}(1)_\mathrm{global}$ model. This model exhibits superfluidity of $\mathrm{U}(1)_\mathrm{global}$ symmetry and allows for a crossover between the Higgs and confinement regimes by varying the gauge coupling constant from weak to strong. We demonstrate that, on vortices, spontaneous breaking of the $\mathbb{Z}_2$ flavor symmetry occurs in the weak coupling (Higgs) regime, while it does not in the strong coupling (confinement) regime. We also confirm that those regimes are separated by a second-order phase transition through Monte Carlo simulations, whose universality class corresponds to the two-dimensional Ising model.