We investigate the vacuum expectation value of a complex scalar field on a two-dimensional torus with quantized magnetic flux M. A characteristic feature of this system is the emergence of a critical area: when the area of the torus exceeds this critical value, the vacuum expectation value becomes nonvanishing. Furthermore, any nonzero vacuum expectation value necessarily exhibits nontrivial dependence on the coordinates of the torus. Employing the lowest-mode approximation, we find a single vacuum configuration for M = 1, whereas two and six degenerate vacuum configurations arise for M = 2 and M = 3, respectively. We then analyze the symmetry properties of these vacuum configurations and determine whether they preserve or spontaneously break the symmetry of the underlying system.
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Akamatsu et al. (2026) studied this question.
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