Chiral symmetry breaking, emergent Higgs mechanism, and critical matter - a podcast by Michael Haack

The upshot of extensive studies of �uctuations in condensed matter systems is that
their qualitative importance is typically con#ned to isolated critical points ofcontinuous transitions between phases of matter. This conventional wisdom also
predicts the number of low energy Goldstone modes based on the so-called “G/H”pattern of symmetry breaking. I will discuss a class of systems, some quite wellknown,
that violate this standard paradigm. Namely, they exhibit a fewer than “G/H”number of low-energy modes due to an emergent Higgs mechanism. Even more
spectacularly, such systems exhibit “critical” ordered phases, with universal power-lawproperties reminiscent of a critical point, but requiring no #ne-tuning and extending
throughout the ordered phase. One exciting recently discovered state is the heliconicalnematic that in addition to above phenomena also exhibits spontaneous chiral
symmetry breaking.

Further episodes of Sommerfeld Theory Colloquium (ASC)

Further podcasts by Michael Haack

Website of Michael Haack