Work

Borromean Criticality in Two Dimensions

Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: The characteristic feature of counterflow superfluids consisting of $N\geq 3$ components -- the so-called Borromean supercounterfluids (BSCF) -- is the presence of $N$ distinct elementary topological excitations (vortices) despite having only $N-1$ independent Goldstone modes. We show that this remarkable property clearly manifests itself at the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-type transition from the BSCF to the normal state, under the conditions of slight to moderate deviations from the case of exact intercomponent symmetry. More generally, our analysis also applies to any multicomponent superfluid with intercomponent drag fine-tuned to the value when certain composite vortices compete energetically with elementary ones.
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213346286
Cites: 1
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Related to: 10