Title: Abelian and non-Abelian excitations in fracton phases of matter
Speaker: Michael Hermele (CU Boulder)
Abstract: Fracton phases of matter are a new class of quantum phases of matter characterized by excitations that exhibit restricted mobility. These phases, the most interesting examples of which occur in three-dimensional systems, have attracted recent interest in large part because they do not appear to fit into existing paradigms to characterize or classify quantum phases of matter. In this talk, I will first give a brief overview of fracton phases, and then discuss two recent works focusing on the excitations of fully gapped fracton phases in three dimensions. First, I will outline an approach to describe fusion and statistical processes in fracton phases with Abelian excitations. Second, I will describe a relatively simple fracton model supporting non-Abelian excitations restricted to move along lines, and demonstrate that the restricted mobility and non-Abelian nature of these excitations is a fundamentally three-dimensional phenomenon.