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September 23, 2025Physical review. B./Physical review. B4 citations

Quantum phase transitions between symmetry-enriched fracton phases

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JBJulian BoeslYLYu-Jie LiuWXWen-Tao Xu

Key Points

  • Critical features of symmetry-enriched fracton phases show unique quantum phase transitions.
  • The study highlights the X-Cube model and its associated excitations, lineons and fractons.
  • An innovative approach utilizing isometric tensor network states streamlines the study of fracton phases.
  • This methodology offers a pathway to implement exotic topological order on quantum devices.

Abstract

Topologically ordered phases exhibit further complexity in the presence of global symmetries: Their anyonic excitations may exhibit different transformation patterns under these symmetries, leading to a classification in terms of symmetry-enriched topological orders. We develop a generic scheme to study an analogous situation for three-dimensional fracton phases by means of isometric tensor network states (isoTNS) with finite bond dimension, which allow us to tune phase transitions between different symmetry fractionalization patterns. We focus on the X-Cube model, a paradigmatic fracton model hosting two types of excitations: lineons, which are mobile in a single direction only, and fractons that are immobile on their own. By deforming the local tensors of the fixed point ground state, we find a family of exact wavefunctions for which the symmetry fractionalization under an anti-unitary symmetry on both types of excitations is directly visible. These wavefunctions are nonstabilizer states and have nonvanishing correlation lengths. They even exhibit power-law correlations at criticality between two symmetry-enriched topological orders. Furthermore, the isoTNS description allows for the explicit construction of a linear-depth quantum circuit to sequentially realize these exotic 3D states on a quantum processor, including a holographic scheme using only a pair of two-dimensional qubit arrays alongside measurements. Our approach provides a construction to enrich phases with exotic topological or fracton order and to study 3D quantum phase transitions with exact wavefunctions, and offers a tractable route to implement and characterize fracton order on quantum devices.

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Cite This Study

Boesl et al. (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68d475a031b076d99fa6dddahttps://doi.org/10.1103/fsr8-xd4n
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