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Temperature-Resistant Order in 2+1 Dimensions

Speaker
Fedor Popov
Date
Mon April 7th 2025, 2:00 - 3:30pm
Affiliation
New York University
Event Sponsor
Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics
Location
Varian 355

High temperatures are typically thought to increase disorder. 

Here we examine this idea in Quantum Field Theory in 2+1 dimensions. For this sake we explore a novel class of tractable models, consisting of nearly-mean-field scalars interacting with critical scalars. We identify UV-complete, local, unitary models in this class and show that symmetry breaking $\mathbb{Z}_2 \to \emptyset$ occurs at any temperature in some regions of the phase diagram. This phenomenon, previously observed in models with fractional dimensions, or in the strict planar limits, or with non-local interactions, is now exhibited in a local, unitary 2+1 dimensional model with a finite number of fields.