GAUGE INVARIANCE AND BROKEN SYMMETRIES IN ANYON SUPERFLUIDS

Abstract

We review aspects of broken symmetry and the nature of long range order in theories of anyons starting with bosons with a statistical interaction. We introduce a novel gauge invariant quantization scheme that allows the identification of local and gauge invariant order parameters. The connection between spin and statistics is reviewed and the consequences of broken symmetries in the anyon representation are discussed. An anyon gas is studied in the Bogoliubov approximation, it is determined that the ground state is a condensate of charge-flux composites with “quasi-long-range order” at zero temperature, a “weak” gap in the spectrum and finite helicity modulus. The system is disordered at nonzero temperatures. The disorder is not caused by Goldstone bosons but by the strong infrared behavior arising from the Coulomb interaction induced by the long-range statistical interaction. The properties of topological vortices in nonrelativistic and in relativistic Landau-Ginzburg theories are studied in detail. We study the physics of the mean-field ansatz and quasi-long range order in a simple exactly soluble relativistic model. This model exhibits a novel phenomenon of charge redistribution to the boundaries and restoration of translational invariance in the infinite volume limit. It also illuminates the physics of quasi-long-range order with a gap in the spectrum, statistical charge polarization by external magnetic fields and the role of “large” gauge transformations.