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Anomalous Continuous Translations

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2025-08-13 v3 High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

We discuss a large class of non-relativistic continuum field theories where the Euclidean spatial symmetry of the classical theory is violated in the quantum theory by an Adler-Bell-Jackiw-like anomaly. In particular, the continuous translation symmetry of the classical theory is broken in the quantum theory to a discrete symmetry. Furthermore, that discrete symmetry is extended by an internal symmetry, making it non-Abelian. This presentation streamlines and extends the discussion in [1]. In an Appendix, we present an elementary introduction to 't Hooft and Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomalies using a well-known system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.14434,
  title  = {Anomalous Continuous Translations},
  author = {Nathan Seiberg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.14434},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

30 pages, minor changes

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:41:29.549Z