Gauging in superconductors and other electronic systems

Abstract Ordinary, s-wave superconductors have been recognized as being topological phases of matter, in which the dynamical gauge field implies less understood global features. Using the tools of topological field theories and generalized symmetries, we provide an updated description of these systems. At very low energies, the Higgs model reduces to the BF theory, which exhibits topological order. Furthermore, the gauge field must be a spin_c connection, to describe the spin of fermions forming Cooper pairs. Gauging implies that superconductors are inherently bosonic systems, yet they are endowed with a gravito-magnetic anomaly that is the remnant of their fermionic origin. We recognize that this anomaly is related to the Gaiotto-Kapustin-Thorngren bosonization, achieved via gauging fermion parity (-1)^F, now included in the gauge dynamics. This anomaly characterizes gauged electronic matter in great generality in three and four spacetime dimensions, forbidding trivial massive phases at low energy. It holds beyond the validity of the Higgs model, and in other kinds of superconductors as well. It also appears in the nontrivial massless phase of three-dimensional electrodynamics, recently understood.