Fractons from frustration in hole-doped antiferromagnets

Abstract

Abstract Recent theoretical research on tensor gauge theories led to the discovery of an exotic type of quasiparticles, dubbed fractons, that obey both charge and dipole conservation. Here we describe physical implementation of dipole conservation laws in realistic systems. We show that fractons find a natural realization in hole-doped antiferromagnets. There, individual holes are largely immobile, while dipolar hole pairs move with ease. First, we demonstrate a broad parametric regime of fracton behavior in hole-doped two-dimensional Ising antiferromagnets viable through five orders in perturbation theory. We then specialize to the case of holes confined to one dimension in an otherwise two-dimensional antiferromagnetic background, which can be realized via the application of external fields in experiments, and prove ideal fracton behavior. We explicitly map the model onto a fracton Hamiltonian featuring conservation of dipole moment. Manifestations of fractonicity in these systems include gravitational clustering of holes. We also discuss diagnostics of fracton behavior, which we argue is borne out in existing experimental results.