https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-13821-x
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Quasi-topological fractons: a 3D dipolar gauge theory
1
School of Theoretical Physics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 10 Burlington Road, Dublin 4, Ireland
2
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare-Sezione di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genoa, Italy
3
Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genoa, Italy
Received:
18
December
2024
Accepted:
10
January
2025
Published online:
24
January
2025
We consider the theory of a generic rank-2 tensor field in three spacetime dimensions, which involves a symmetric tensor field transforming under infinitesimal diffeomorphisms, and a vector field, whose gauge transformation depends on a local vector parameter. The gauge fixing shows a non-trivial structure, and some non-intuitive possibilities are listed. Despite the fact that the theory is not topological, the energy-momentum tensor vanishes on-shell, which justifies the “quasi-topological” appellation we give to this theory. We show that the theory has three degrees of freedom. Moreover, we find an interesting physical interpretation, which consists in a generalized planar electromagnetism and in the emergence of two vector charges with restricted mobility. These are typical fractonic behaviours which can be related to the so-called traceless scalar and vector charge theories.
© The Author(s) 2025
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funded by SCOAP3.
