Intertwined Topological Phases induced by Emergent Symmetry Protection

Understand

The dual role played by symmetry in many-body physics manifests itself through two fundamental mechanisms: spontaneous symmetry breaking and topological symmetry protection.

• These two concepts, ubiquitous in both condensed matter and high energy physics, have been applied successfully in the last decades to unravel a plethora of complex phenomena.
• Their interplay, however, remains largely unexplored.
• Here we report how, in the presence of strong correlations, symmetry protection emerges dynamically from a set of configurations enforced by another broken symmetry.