Work

Symmetric mass generation of interacting chiral fermions on a one-dimensional lattice without fermion doubling

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Symmetric mass generation is the interaction-induced opening of a fermion gap without spontaneous symmetry breaking. The anomaly-free 3–4–5–0 model of Wang and Wen provides a minimal one-dimensional setting for this phenomenon, but a direct lattice realization faces two obstacles: fermion doubling for local chiral discretizations and perturbative irrelevance of the six-fermion gapping interaction. We address both obstacles. First, we formulate the model on a strictly one-dimensional tangent-fermion lattice, where a nonlocal hopping produces a single chiral branch without a mirror partner while retaining an efficient tensor-network representation. Second, we add a Hubbard-type density-density interaction (Luttinger parameter K ) that reduces the scaling dimension of the 3–4–5–0 interaction from 5 to 5 K , making it relevant for K < 2 / 5 . Density-matrix renormalization group calculations show the opening of an excitation gap in this regime without the appearance of a degenerate ground state, the hallmark of symmetric mass generation.

Source: Physical Review Research

DOI: 10.1103/2v9h-25qs

Authors: V. A. Zakharov, Atsushi Ueda, Frank Verstraete, C. W. J. Beenakker

Institutions: Leiden University, Ghent University, University of Cambridge

Language: English

Topic: Quantum many-body systems

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,625