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Spontaneous Symmetry breaking
Spontaneous symmetry breaking
Suppose we have some laws describing how possible states
ought to behave and they are
symmetric
under a certain group.
But suppose, however, the lowest energy solution, i.e. the stable solution is
not symmetric
under that group. This obviously means the lowest energy state is
degenerate
and performing a symmetry transformation on any such state would just lead to
another such state. However, from the point of view of an observer in a state
close to one of these states, it looks as if the symmetry of the dynamical laws
are broken.
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Quantum Phase Transitions
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