English

Generalized Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

Materials Science 2020-11-24 v3 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We propose a new type of symmetry breaking mechanism that takes boundaries into account, and show how it can detect surface modes by interpreting them as the order parameter associated with a generalized symmetry breaking. We argue that this mechanism is analogous to, and yet distinct from, the standard Ginzburg-Landau scenarios, and show how the two communicate through the specification of boundary conditions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2008.08066,
  title  = {Generalized Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking},
  author = {Sinéad M. Griffin and Michele Schiavina},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.08066},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

5 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:56:43.150Z