Emergent Gauge Flux in Mixed QED3 with Flavor Chemical Potential: Implications for Magnetized U(1) Dirac Spin Liquids
6 affiliations
- 1The University of Hong Kong
- 2University of Cologne
- 3University of Utah
- 4Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- 5French American Center for Theoretical Science
- 6University of California
Abstract
We design a lattice model of a “mixed” U(1) gauge field coupled to fermions with a flavor chemical potential and solve it with large-scale determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In this mixed construction, dynamical magnetic monopole events are suppressed in the temporal-continuum limit. For zero flavor chemical potential, the model realizes three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics ( QED 3 ) which has been argued to describe the ground state and low-energy excitations of the Dirac spin liquid phase of quantum antiferromagnets. At finite flavor chemical potential, which corresponds to a Zeeman field perturbing the Dirac spin liquid, we find a “chiral flux” phase which is characterized by the generation of a finite mean emergent gauge flux and, accordingly, the formation of relativistic Landau levels for the Dirac fermions. We use field-theory arguments to argue that in this state a U ( 1 ) m magnetic symmetry is spontaneously broken, leading to a gapless photon mode. Because of spin-flux attachment this mode would contribute to the low-energy longitudinal spin response. We numerically compute longitudinal and transverse spin structure factors which match our continuum and lattice mean-field theory predictions. In a different region of the phase diagram, strong fluctuations of the emergent gauge field give rise to an antiferromagnetically ordered state with gapped Dirac fermions coexisting with a deconfined gauge field. We also find an interesting intermediate phase where the chiral flux phase and the antiferromagnetic phase coexist. We argue that our results pave the way to testable predictions for magnetized Dirac spin liquids in frustrated quantum antiferromagnets.
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BibTeX
@article{chen2026emergent,
title = {{Emergent Gauge Flux in Mixed $\mathrmQED_3$ with Flavor Chemical Potential: Implications for Magnetized U(1) Dirac Spin Liquids}},
author = {Chuang Chen and Urban F. P. Seifert and Kexin Feng and Oleg A. Starykh and Leon Balents and Zi Yang Meng},
journal = {Physical Review X},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1103/yb9y-3t91},
url = {http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/yb9y-3t91},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Emergent Gauge Flux in Mixed QED_3 with Flavor Chemical Potential: Implications for Magnetized U(1) Dirac Spin Liquids
AU - Chuang Chen
AU - Urban F. P. Seifert
AU - Kexin Feng
AU - Oleg A. Starykh
AU - Leon Balents
AU - Zi Yang Meng
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
JO - Physical Review X
DO - 10.1103/yb9y-3t91
UR - http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/yb9y-3t91
AB - We design a lattice model of a “mixed” U(1) gauge field coupled to fermions with a flavor chemical potential and solve it with large-scale determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations. In this mixed construction, dynamical magnetic monopole events are suppressed in the temporal-continuum limit. For zero flavor chemical potential, the model realizes three-dimensional quantum electrodynamics ( QED 3 ) which has been argued to describe the ground state and low-energy excitations of the Dirac spin liquid phase of quantum antiferromagnets. At finite flavor chemical potential, which corresponds to a Zeeman field perturbing the Dirac spin liquid, we find a “chiral flux” phase which is characterized by the generation of a finite mean emergent gauge flux and, accordingly, the formation of relativistic Landau levels for the Dirac fermions. We use field-theory arguments to argue that in this state a U ( 1 ) m magnetic symmetry is spontaneously broken, leading to a gapless photon mode. Because of spin-flux attachment this mode would contribute to the low-energy longitudinal spin response. We numerically compute longitudinal and transverse spin structure factors which match our continuum and lattice mean-field theory predictions. In a different region of the phase diagram, strong fluctuations of the emergent gauge field give rise to an antiferromagnetically ordered state with gapped Dirac fermions coexisting with a deconfined gauge field. We also find an interesting intermediate phase where the chiral flux phase and the antiferromagnetic phase coexist. We argue that our results pave the way to testable predictions for magnetized Dirac spin liquids in frustrated quantum antiferromagnets.
SN - 2160-3308
ER -