ID: 2109.15320

C-P-T Fractionalization

September 30, 2021

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Juven Wang
High Energy Physics - Theory
Condensed Matter
High Energy Physics - Lattic...
High Energy Physics - Phenom...
Mathematics
Strongly Correlated Electron...
Mathematical Physics

Discrete spacetime symmetries of parity P or reflection R, and time-reversal T, act naively as $\mathbb{Z}_2$-involutions in the passive transformation on the spacetime coordinates; but together with a charge conjugation C, the total C-P-R-T symmetries have enriched active transformations on fields in representations of the spacetime-internal symmetry groups of quantum field theories (QFTs). In this work, we derive that these symmetries can be further fractionalized, especially in the presence of the fermion parity $(-1)^{\rm F}$. We elaborate on examples including relativistic Lorentz invariant QFTs (e.g., spin-1/2 Dirac or Majorana spinor fermion theories) and nonrelativistic quantum many-body systems (involving Majorana zero modes), and comment on applications to spin-1 Maxwell electromagnetism (QED) or interacting Yang-Mills (QCD) gauge theories. We discover various C-P-R-T-$(-1)^{\rm F}$ group structures, e.g., Dirac spinor is in a projective representation of $\mathbb{Z}_2^{\rm C}\times \mathbb{Z}_2^{\rm P} \times \mathbb{Z}_2^{\rm T}$ but in an (anti)linear representation of an order-16 nonabelian finite group, as the central product between an order-8 dihedral (generated by C and P) or quaternion group and an order-4 group generated by T with T$^2=(-1)^{\rm F}$. The general theme may be coined as C-P-T or C-R-T fractionalization.

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