Related papers: Photons and electrons as emergent phenomena

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…

For a long time, people believe that all possible states of matter are described by Landau symmetry-breaking theory. Recently we find that string-net condensation provide a mechanism to produce states of matter beyond the symmetry-breaking…

We review some recent work on new states of matter. Those states cannot be described symmetry breaking and hence contain a new kind of order -- quantum order. Some quantum orders are shown to be closely related to string-net condensations.…

We show that quantum systems of extended objects naturally give rise to a large class of exotic phases - namely topological phases. These phases occur when the extended objects, called ``string-nets'', become highly fluctuating and…

Recently, it was pointed out that quantum orders and the associated projective symmetry groups can produce and protect massless gauge bosons and massless fermions in local bosonic models. In this paper, we demonstrate that a state with such…

The origin of light is a unsolved mystery in nature. Recently, it was suggested that light may originate from a new kind of order - quantum order. To test this idea in experiments, we study systems of screened magnetic/electric dipoles in…

Entanglement is a fundamental feature of quantum theory as well as a key resource for quantum computing and quantum communication, but the entanglement mechanism has not been found at present. We think when the two subsystems exist…

An important goal of modern condensed matter physics involves the search for states of matter with new emergent properties and desirable functionalities. Although the tools for material design remain relatively limited, notable advances…

In condensed matter systems, the atoms, electrons or spins can sometimes arrange themselves in ways that result in unexpected properties but that cannot be detected by conventional experimental probes. Several historical and contemporary…

We reconsider a scenario in which photons and other gauge fields appear as the composite vector bosons made of the fermion pairs that may happen with or without spontaneous violation of Lorentz invariance. The class of composite models for…

The phenomenon of emergent physics in condensed-matter many-body systems has become the paradigm of modern physics, and can probably also be applied to high-energy physics and cosmology. This encouraging fact comes from the universal…

We present a comprehensive and pedagogic discussion of the properties of photons in cold and dense nuclear matter based on the resummed one-loop photon self energy. Correlations between electrons, muons, protons and neutrons in beta…

Motivated by a revision of the classical equations of electromagnetism that allow for the inclusion of solitary waves in the solution space, the material collected in these notes examines the consequences of adopting the modified model in…

We derive an arbitrary-gauge criterion under which condensed matter within an electromagnetic field may transition to a photon condensed phase. Previous results are recovered by selecting the Coulomb-gauge wherein photon condensation can…

This is an attempt to construct a classical microscopic model of the electron which underlies quantum mechanics. An electron is modeled, not as a point particle, but as the end of an electromagnetic string, a line of flux. These lines…

Entanglement of photons is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics, which stands at the core of quantum technologies such as photonic quantum computing, communication, and sensing. An ongoing challenge in all these is finding an…

Gravity compresses the matter in the cores of neutron stars to densities which are significantly higher than the density of ordinary atomic nuclei, thus providing a high-pressure environment in which numerous particle processes - from the…

In a model where a multiverse wavefunction explores a multitude of vacua with different symmetries and parameters, properties of universes closely related to ours can be understood by examining the consequences of small departures of…

Elementary excitations in condensed matter capture the complex many-body dynamics of interacting basic entities in a simple quasiparticle picture. In magnetic systems the most established quasiparticles are magnons, collective excitations…

The idea of confinement states that in certain systems constituent particles can be discerned only indirectly being bound by an interaction whose strength increases with increasing particle separation. Though the most famous example is the…