Staggered Bosons - Novel Field Theories with Half Boson Degrees of Freedom

Explore a groundbreaking lecture on staggered bosons presented by David Berenstein from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Delve into a novel construction of field theories based on the concept of half boson degrees of freedom per lattice site. Examine how this approach differs from traditional canonical conjugate commuting variables, instead utilizing a single degree of freedom with non-trivial commutators arising from nearest neighbor connections. Discover the similarities between this construction and staggered fermions, and learn about the resulting gapless systems with intriguing topological properties. Investigate the consequences of gauging discrete translations on the phase space in one-dimensional examples, leading to critical spin chains such as the Ising model in a transverse magnetic field and the 3-state Potts model at criticality. Gain insights into how staggered boson variables naturally describe non-invertible symmetries in this comprehensive 1-hour and 18-minute talk from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.