- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Relativistic fractons and their dust

Qiuyue Liang* and Tom Melia†

  • *Contact author: qiuyue.liang@ipmu.jp
  • †Contact author: tom.melia@ipmu.jp
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 112, 116013 – Published 17 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ts27-5y4q

Abstract

We define a relativistic version of the global symmetries responsible for the restricted mobility of fracton quasiparticles. The theories have a symmetry current that is proportional to a vector field that spontaneously breaks Lorentz boost symmetry. We argue that the existence of a pressureless dust in the early Universe could be a consequence of this symmetry. We provide an example of a fractonic scalar field with a quartic self-interaction evolving on a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background and show that the interaction gives rise to a separately conserved fluid with equation of state w=1.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (28)

  1. J. McGreevy, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 14, 57 (2023).
  2. T. D. Brennan and S. Hong, arXiv:2306.00912.
  3. C. Chamon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 040402 (2005).
  4. J. Haah, Phys. Rev. A 83, 042330 (2011).
  5. S. Vijay, J. Haah, and L. Fu, Phys. Rev. B 92, 235136 (2015).
  6. S. Vijay, J. Haah, and L. Fu, Phys. Rev. B 94, 235157 (2016).
  7. R. M. Nandkishore and M. Hermele, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 10, 295 (2019).
  8. M. Pretko, X. Chen, and Y. You, Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 35, 2030003 (2020).
  9. N. Seiberg, SciPost Phys. 8, 050 (2020).
  10. M. Pretko, Phys. Rev. B 98, 115134 (2018).
  11. A. Nicolis, R. Penco, F. Piazza, and R. Rattazzi, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2015) 155.
  12. A. Nicolis, R. Penco, and R. A. Rosen, Phys. Rev. D 89, 045002 (2014).
  13. A. Jain, arXiv:2406.07334.
  14. M. Gasperini, Classical Quantum Gravity 4, 485 (1987).
  15. T. Jacobson and D. Mattingly, Phys. Rev. D 64, 024028 (2001).
  16. S. M. Carroll and E. A. Lim, Phys. Rev. D 70, 123525 (2004).
  17. T. Jacobson and D. Mattingly, Phys. Rev. D 70, 024003 (2004).
  18. E. A. Lim, Phys. Rev. D 71, 063504 (2005).
  19. N. Arkani-Hamed, H.-C. Cheng, M. A. Luty, S. Mukohyama, and T. Wiseman, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2007) 036.
  20. N. Seiberg and S.-H. Shao, SciPost Phys. 10, 027 (2021).
  21. N. Seiberg and S.-H. Shao, SciPost Phys. 9, 046 (2020).
  22. M. Joyce, Phys. Rev. D 55, 1875 (1997).
  23. P. G. Ferreira and M. Joyce, Phys. Rev. D 58, 023503 (1998).
  24. Y. Gouttenoire, G. Servant, and P. Simakachorn, arXiv:2111.01150.
  25. B. M. Gripaios, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2004) 069.
  26. C. Armendariz-Picon and A. Diez-Tejedor, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 12 (2009) 018.
  27. M. Kunz, S. Nesseris, and I. Sawicki, Phys. Rev. D 94, 023510 (2016).
  28. S. Dubovsky, T. Gregoire, A. Nicolis, and R. Rattazzi, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2006) 025.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 112, 116013– Published 17 December, 2025
  • Received 8 April 2025
  • Accepted 18 November 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation