Fractons from covariant higher-rank three-dimensional BF theory

In this paper we study the three-dimensional (3D) gauge theory of two tensor gauge fields: aμν (x), which we take symmetric, and Bμν (x), with no symmetry on its indices. The corresponding invariant action is a higher-rank BF-like model, which is first considered from a purely field theoretical point of view, and the propagators with their poles and the degrees of freedom are studied. Once matter is introduced, a fracton behavior naturally emerges. We show that our theory can be mapped to the low-energy effective field theory describing the Rank-2 toric code (R2TC). This relation between our covariant BF-like theory and the R2TC is a higher-rank generalization of the equivalence between the ordinary 3D BF theory and Kitaev’s toric code. In the last part of the paper we analyze the case in which the field Bμν (x) is a symmetric tensor. It turns out that the obtained BF-like action can be cast into the sum of two rank-2 Chern-Simons actions, thus generalizing the ordinary Abelian case. Therefore, this represents a higher-rank generalization of the ordinary 3D BF theory, which well describes the low-energy physics of quantum spin Hall insulators in two spatial dimensions.