Quantum ether: photons and electrons from a rotor model

TL;DR

This paper presents a bosonic rotor model on a 3D lattice that demonstrates how photons and electrons can emerge as low-energy excitations, supporting the idea that elementary particles originate from string-net condensation.

Contribution

It provides a concrete example of a bosonic model where gauge bosons and fermions emerge, illustrating the string-net condensation mechanism for particle emergence.

Findings

Low-energy excitations behave like massless photons and Dirac fermions.

The model exemplifies a 'quantum ether' giving rise to elementary particles.

Supports the idea of a unified origin of particles through string-net condensation.

Abstract

We give an example of a purely bosonic model -- a rotor model on the 3D cubic lattice -- whose low energy excitations behave like massless U(1) gauge bosons and massless Dirac fermions. This model can be viewed as a ``quantum ether'': a medium that gives rise to both photons and electrons. It illustrates a general mechanism for the emergence of gauge bosons and fermions known as ``string-net condensation.'' Other, more complex, string-net condensed models can have excitations that behave like gluons, quarks and other particles in the standard model. This suggests that photons, electrons and other elementary particles may have a unified origin: string-net condensation in our vacuum.