Paper detail

Anatomy of Z2 fluxes in anyon Fermi liquids and Bose condensates

We study in detail the properties of pi-fluxes embedded in a state with a finite density of anyons that form either a Fermi liquid or a Bose-Einstein condensate. By employing a recently developed exact lattice bosonization in 2D, we demonstrate that such pi-flux remains a fully deconfined quasiparticle with a finite energy cost in a Fermi liquid of emergent fermions coupled to a Z2 gauge field. This pi-flux is accompanied by a screening cloud of fermions, which in the case of a Fermi gas with a parabolic dispersion binds exactly 1/8 of a fermionic hole. In addition there is a long-ranged power-law oscillatory disturbance of the liquid surrounding the pi-flux akin to Friedel oscillations. These results carry over directly to the pi-flux excitations in orthogonal metals. In sharp contrast, when the pi-flux is surrounded by a Bose-Einstein condensate of particles coupled to a Z2 gauge field, it binds a superfluid half-vortex, becoming a marginally confined excitation with a logarithmic energy cost divergence.