Fractonic criticality in Rydberg atom arrays
Abstract: Fractonic matter can undergo unconventional phase transitions driven by the condensation of particles that move along subdimensional manifolds. We propose that this type of quantum critical point can be realized in a bilayer of crossed Rydberg chains. This system exhibits a transition between a disordered phase and a charge-density-wave phase with subextensive ground state degeneracy. We show that this transition is described by a stack of critical Ising conformal field theories that become decoupled in the low-energy limit due to emergent subsystem symmetries. We also analyze the transition using a Majorana mean-field approach for an effective lattice model, which confirms the picture of a fixed point of decoupled critical chains. We discuss the unusual scaling properties and derive anisotropic correlators that provide signatures of subdimensional criticality in this realistic setup.
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