English

Are there Goldstone bosons in ${d\leq z+1}$ ?

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-09-11 v2

Abstract

We study the viability of spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetries in theories with Lifshitz scaling, according to the number of space-time dimensions dd and the dynamical scaling zz. Then, the answer to the question in the title is no (quantum field theoretically) and yes (holographically). With field theory tools, we show that symmetry breaking is indeed prevented by large quantum fluctuations when dz+1d\leq z+1, as expected from scaling arguments. With holographic tools, on the other hand, we find nothing that prevents the existence of a vacuum expectation value. This difference is made possible by the large NN limit of holography. An important subtlety in this last framework is that in order to get a proper description of a conserved current, renormalization of the temporal mode of the bulk vector requires an alternative quantization. We also comment on the implications of turning on temperature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1903.11417,
  title  = {Are there Goldstone bosons in ${d\leq z+1}$ ?},
  author = {Riccardo Argurio and Daniel Naegels and Antoine Pasternak},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.11417},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

18 pages. v2: a few clarifying comments added, matches published version