String Net Condensation

1 The model

Consider the following Rotor model, where H=U

i

Q2 + J i
ij

L2 g ij
ijkl

(Bijkl + h.c.) Bijkl = L Ljk Lkl Lli ij L = eiij ij

(1) (2) (3)

Qi =
i

Lz i

Lz = iij ij

Let us interpret each term. The U term describes a positive energy cost in having open string congurations. As long as the strings arre closed, the value of Q is 0 at all vertices of the lattice. The J term describes an energy cost at having ANYTHING nontrivial. It represents an energy gap to excitations. The g term, on the other hand allows for string hoppings, and creates large strings. Therefore, we have a competition between J and g terms.

1.1

g = 0 Limit

In that limit, the Hamiltonian commutes with Lz . This implies eigenstates are Lz eigenstates, and a good set of quantum numbers is {mi } which lables the angular momentum at every link. The ground state is where m = 0 at every link, and the energy is given by E=U
i

Q2 + J i
ij

m2 ij

(4)

which implies the low energy is gapped by a value of 2 U (2 ends)+ J (1 link). Note there are not dynamics, because all eigenstates of labelled by {mi } do not time evolve. We could say the ground state is symmetric, and does not break any symmetry of the Hamiltonian.

1.2

J = 0 limit

Since, [Qa , Blkji ] = 0, (because Q is a string creation operator, while B is a string hopping operator...) Eigenstates are labelled by |qa , B . Once again, there are no nontrivial dynamics for ijkl eigenstates. The energy is: E=U
i 2 qi 2g ijkl

cos B ijkl

(5)

Since is a real number, the low energy dynamics are gapless. What does the ground state look like? All qi must be zero which means strings must be closed. To be an eigenstate, it 1

must be invariant under time evolution, in other words hopping a string should rotate the state into another state that is itself. The ground state must therefore be a superposition of all closed string states, which therefore describes a string liquid. But the symmetry is the same as the g = 0 limit! Despite being in a dierent phase, there is no symmetry breaking. This is characteristic of system exhibiting long range entanglement. The g.s. of this system cannot be written as product state of local strings since it contains arbitrarily large loops.

Semi-classical Equations of Motion

Approximation: U >> g >> J. This will put us into the string liquid phase. Canonical pair choice: Lz and Bijkl . L corresponds to momenta and all commute between ij each other. In the small J limit, B uctuates little and is a good coordinate choice.

2.1

Heisenberg picture
L12 = i[H, L12 ] = ig(B1234 + B6512 + B8721 + B0912 h.c.) (6)

We used the fact that [L12 , L ] = L 12 12 We introduce the usual approximation that L B = L B . We introduce the small uctuation variables : = 2 L and ei = B Note, is not a dynamical variable. The other variables following the time-evolution given by: t 21 = 4g(
i

sin i )

J t i = (

j )
j

(7)

Note we have the constraint that the product of all Bs around the six loops have to be 1,by denition, so that : B i i = 0 around the faces of a cube. (no magnetic monopole condition). The condition of no open string means that jnexttoi ij = 0, which is equivalent to no electric monopole. The complete description of a classical system includes both equations of motion and energy. The energy is given by: E . J 4 2 E ij 2g
ij ijkl 2

cos(B ) ijkl

2.2

Continuum limit

In the continuum limit, the following approximations hold: 1 = a2 (j i) E( (j + i)) ij 2 B = a2 B nijkl ijkl 2 (8) (9)

In words, we see the curl of ux of B generates a change in B, and a curl of the ux of E is generated by the charnge in B, which is maxwell equations! t E = 4ga B Ja t B = E E = B =0 Details Start from t 21 = 4g(
i

(10) (11) (12)

sin i )

and linearize the equation to t 21 = 4g(

i

B ) i

The other equation is J t i = ( E ) = j

j

Quantum Fluctuations

J 1 Let us dene the variable c = 2 g , which parametrize quantum uctuations. To get a picture of quantum uctuations, we have to move to the Harmonic oscillator formalism, which means k-space picture for E(k) and B(k) for our case. In terms of our new variable, the energy is (I denotes polarization sum):

E=
k,I

cc I I c Ek Ek + BI BI 4 4c k k

(13)

We see the modes (k,-k) decouple. To make it look even better, we transform into the pair X, Y: Bk = Ek = k(Py iPx ) ck 2 cc k 2 H(k) = (PI ) + X 2 2c I I k(X + iY ) (14) (15) (16)

The quantum uctuations are: 1 2 X I = c 2 3 PI2 = 1 2c (17)

To get intuition over the model, let us return back to our denition of E, B. E corresponded to the E , which was the average 2 Lz , while B corresponds to the ux B , which B was dened as ei = Bijkl Now, B has a compact phase space, so the extreme quantum limit is when 2 << 2, while E is quantized as integers, so the classical limit is when B a2 E >> 1. Both of these conditions are satised when c << 1.

3.1

Quantum Freeze, and the pitfalls of the classical model

Lets naively analyze low energy dynamics of this system, by treating both canonical pairs classically, i.e. the pair (, L). The equations of motion are just coupled rotors on a lattice, with a ground state L, = 0, 0 . We introduce a new variable A, which will parametrize low energy oscillations via:
j

ij =
i

A dx

from which we deduce the phase space lagrangian as A aJ ag 1 2E E ( d x( E 2 t 8 2

3

L=

U a3 A) ( 4 2
2

E)2 )

(18)

We note this system of rotors will have 3 modes, just like phonons, because it is in 3 spatial dimensions. But somehow, maxwell equations only have 2 transverse modes. Note that phonon action, beyond the standard compressive energy also has shear terms of the form A which is not unlike the hamiltonian terms in here. We suspect this is the dierence to Maxwell E and M and spin waves dynamics. The crucial point is that the spin wave starts from the picture of rotors having xed angles ij . While the equations of motion for the spin wave and the maxwell system are the same after the identication B = A,they have dierent constraints, with very dierent phase space. The Spin wave phase space is described by (A, E) while the maxwell system is described by (E, B). We also note that the spin wave system has no constraints, and has a redundant phase space.

3.2

Partial Quantum Freeze

How does the longitudinal mode get gapped? Transverse mode The longitudinal mode can be identied with the previous discussion. In fact, the analysis of decoupling into sets of harmonic oscillator still works, and the classical picture holds, Longitudinal Mode We make the ansatz: E = 1 L2
3

Ek eikx
k,a

a =

1 L
3 2

ak eiks
k,a

If we plug this answer into the Lagrangian, we get:

4
4.1

Coherent State approach

An ansatz for coherent states

The coherent state approach starts with an ansatz for what we mean by a coherent state. For us, it will be |{zmi j } = (z1ij |1 + z0ij |0 + z1ij |1 ) Unitarity constraints leave us with 2 variable, if we set z0ij = 1, and we further postulate z1ij = z1ij , knowing ahead we will not lose any interesting dynamics. What we really want to study though, is the space of closed strings, but our ansatz for the moment encloses many open strings. This problem can be solved by projecting onto the closed string states, via the projection operator: |{zij } |closedstrings = dj i(i j ) |e zij 2 j=1
N

To see this projection gives 0 for any open string, we note that eia d = 0 unless a = 0, in which case it is 2. For any open string conguration, the product of j eij do not exactly cancel, since some of the z s are 0 around the loop. Now, given a conguration |zij , if there is only 1 open string, that open string will contribute a term of 0 in the product, making the projection 0. The closed string coherent state then can be formed as a superposition of all closed strings, with some amplitude (Xclstr ) associated with each closed string conguration: |{zij }
C

=
XC

(XC ) |XC

Alternately, we can express the amplitude (X) by taking the inner product with XC | to get (XC ) =
jiC

zji

Comments: We would like the stress the product ji is oriented. The orientation comes from the fact that each rotor angular momentum has both +1 and -1 states, hence it does matter whether the string is +1 or -1.
2 The normalization Z = XC ij XC |zij | can be identied as a partition function for 2 an ensemble of loops with a statistical weight given to a loop by ij XC |zij | . This statistical weight is equal to the probability for the given loop to appear in the closed string coherent state.

 There are 2 limits to consider. When zij is closed to 0, long strings are unlikely to appear. This captures the small loop phase conguration. When zij is closed to 1, large loops not as suppressed, which is the large loop phase. In fact, when zij = 1, this is just the string liquid discussed before. The quantum state is a equal weight superposition of ALL closed string congurations.

4.2

Gauge Structure

Our ansatz has built in a U(1) gauge structure. This is because the label |{zi } i XC is a many to one labelling. We can see this because the amplitude for that state in our ansatz is invariant under a transformation zij ei j zij . Two closed string states are equivalent if they are related by such a gauge transformation. This gaug structure is not surprising, given the fact we are working with Quantum mechanics of closed strings, which have built in very special properties about their amplitudes.

4.3

Variational Ground State

To obtain the ground state, we want to minimize the Energy, which is H=J
ij

L2 g ij
ijkl

(Bijkl + h.c.)

Our ansatz is still, too general (or rather, we are somewhat powerless without a more specic guess). Let guess that the ground state is homogenous, i.e. every square looks the same. Then, we only need to minimize the energy on a given square. On a square, there are only 3 states: |0000 , |1111 , |1 1 1 1 Our ansatz becomes |zij = |0000 + z 4 (|1111 + |1 1 1 1 which yields an energy: 2g 4J (2|z|8 ) (z 4 + h.c.) Z Z So the z that minimizes energy is E= 1 zmin = ( 2 J 2 + 8g 2 J 1/4 ) g

4.4

Eective Lagrangian for Collective uctuations

We now consider small uctations in z parametrized as: zij = zmin eij with ij = ji . Note that this is not a gauge transformation, or otherwise it would be trivial. Furthermore, we note this parametrization really has 2 degrees of freedom, because = p + i. We can identify the pair (p, ) as a canonical coord-momentum pair. As usual, we plug this into our phase space lagrangian: 6

L = {ij (t)}| Z 1/2 (i

d H)Z 1/2 |{ij (t)} dt

4.5

Small loop phase

Let us consider the small loop phase, in fact, the extremely small loop where all loops span only 1 square. Since there are only 3 states on a square, our closed string ansatz for a given square looks like |ij = |zmin |4 (e1234 |1111 + e1234 |0000 ) + |0000 where 1234 = loop ij The Berry phase term in the small loop phase looks like: ij | Z 1/2 i
8 d 1/2 4zm Z |ij p 8 loop loop dt 1 + 2zm

We then just add the Berry phase terms on every loops: {ij |i d |{ij }} = bs ddt pijkl B ijkl
ijkl

The way to compute H(ij ) is to cheat: we use the expression for a uniform z, and instead sum over all squares will |z 4 |2 replaced by | square zij |2 . The eective Hamiltonian can be rewritten in terms of momenta and B ux, H = Js 2 p 2 gB ijkl
ijkl ijkl

cos B + C ijkl

Where B is the sum of the angles of the rotors around the loop, p is the sum of the momenta around the loop. and Js , gB are constants. The nal eective Lagrangian has the form: L = bs
ijkl

Js 2

p2 + gB
ijkl ijkl

cos B ijkl

We can identify pbs as the canonical momenta (we want our kinetic energy to positive) and to be the corresponding coordinate. We immediately see this describes nothing more than a harmonic oscillator with = gBsJ and hence the low lying level has an excitation b gap of the order of . We note that k = hence, the excitation are dispersion less and have 0 velocity.

4.6

Large Loop phase

For the large loop phase, the calculation is a little bit delicate. Its because its somewhat hard to characterize the berry phase term for large loops. One variational choice we can make is characterize the berry phase term only for with the following form: ij = D (i j) 7

We note that this implies all the closed loops that do not go all around the system have amplitude 1, while loops that go around the whole system will have quantized amplides in term of D. Quick aside Note this operation is very delicate on a sphere. it is not obvious how to proceed on a sphere if we want a phase space lagrangian formulation. The amplitude for low energy collective excitations for a given string is: (Xc ) =
ijXc

zij = zmin eLX eDn

We then just proceed to compute the berry phase term. But we will need a few tricks rst: 1/2 1 Z | = ln Z(, ) 2 We have now the opportunity to characterize what we mean by large loop and small loop phase. |Z 1/2