Model of fractionalization of Faraday lines in compact electrodynamics

Abstract

Motivated by ideas of fractionalization and intrinsic topological order in bosonic models with short-range interactions, we consider similar phenomena in formal lattice gauge theory models. Specifically, we show that a compact quantum electrodynamics (CQED) can have, besides the familiar Coulomb and confined phases, additional unusual confined phases where excitations are quantum lines carrying fractions of the elementary unit of electric field strength. We construct a model that has N-tupled monopole condensation and realizes 1/N fractionalization of the quantum Faraday lines. This phase has another excitation which is a Z_N quantum surface in spatial dimensions five and higher, but can be viewed as a quantum line or a quantum particle in four or three spatial dimensions, respectively. These excitations have statistical interactions with the fractionalized Faraday lines; for example, in three spatial dimensions, the particle excitation picks up a Berry phase of e^i2π/N when going around the fractionalized Faraday line excitation. We demonstrate the existence of this phase by Monte Carlo simulations in (3+1) space-time dimensions.