Symmetry Colloquia – Global Categorical Symmetries

May 2, 2024

Location: Room G-10, CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138

Speaker: Clay Còrdova, University of Chicago

Title:  Particle-Soliton Degeneracies from Spontaneously Broken Non-Invertible Symmetry

Abstract: We study non-invertible topological symmetry operators in massive quantum field theories in (1+1) dimensions. In phases where this symmetry is spontaneously broken we show that the particle spectrum often has degeneracies dictated by the non-invertible symmetry and we deduce a procedure to determine the allowed multiplets. These degeneracies are robust predictions and do not require integrability or other special features of renormalization group flows. We exhibit these conclusions in examples where the spectrum is known, recovering soliton and particle degeneracies. For instance, the Tricritical Ising model deformed by the subleading Z2 odd operator flows to a gapped phase with two degenerate vacua. This flow enjoys a Fibonacci fusion category symmetry which implies a threefold degeneracy of its particle states, relating the mass of solitons interpolating between vacua and particles supported in a single vacuum.