Fractionalization and emergent gauge field in condensed matter

The entanglement pattern of a quantum many-body state can be characterized by quasiparticles and emergent gauge fields, much like those found in Maxwell's theory. These low energy degrees of freedom "emerge" from the quantum structure of the strongly correlated system, and appear to be more diverse and exotic than their elementary constitute. In particular, one of the key paradigm shifts in modern condensed matter physics has been the observation of symmetry fractionalization where the quasiparticle degree of freedom exhibit fractional quantum number and statistics. An important question is to understand what types of symmetry fractionalization patterns can appear in nature and how do they interplay with the emergent gauge field.

In this talk, she reviews the basic aspects of symmetry fractionalization and emergent gauge fields in condensed matter systems. In addition, she will introduce a new type of quantum many-body phase, dubbed "fracton phase of matter" where the fractionalized sub-dimensional quasiparticle and emergent higher-rank gauge fields exhibit constrained dynamics as a consequence of subsystem symmetry.