Fingerprinting fractons with pump-probe spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper proposes using pump-probe spectroscopy to identify and distinguish fracton phases of matter by detecting unique braiding statistics and bound states of excitations, advancing the experimental study of these exotic phases.

Contribution

It extends spectroscopic techniques to fracton phases, revealing how to detect their unique braiding and bound states, which differ from traditional spin liquids.

Findings

Spectroscopy can detect nontrivial braiding in fracton phases.

Bound states of fractionalized excitations influence long-time signals.

Lineonic excitations show directional mobility, detectable spectroscopically.

Abstract

We demonstrate how pump-probe techniques enable specific diagnostics of fracton phases of matter by exploring how lineon-planon braiding in the paradigmatic X-cube phase may be probed spectroscopically. Our discussion builds on works explaining how to probe anyonic exchange statistics spectroscopically in traditional spin liquids. However, the extension to fracton phases reveals qualitatively new features coming from the existence of multi-anyon bound states, which alter the long-time asymptotic behavior of the signal. In particular, the signal we examine is sensitive to (i) the existence of nontrivial braiding statistics in three dimensions, (ii) the fact that some of the fractionalized excitations can form bound states, and (iii) that some of the fractionalized excitations are lineonic in nature (i.e., mobile only in one dimension). Thus, one can spectroscopically detect not only the existence of anyonic braiding statistics in fracton phases, but can crisply distinguish it from anyons in traditional (non-fractonic) spin liquids.