Abstract
We suggest a mechanism whereby the three generations of quarks and leptons correspond to surface modes in a five-dimensional theory. These modes arise from a nonlinear fermion dispersion relation in the extra dimension, much in the same manner as fermion surface modes in a topological insulator or lattice implementation of domain wall fermions. We also show that the topological properties can persist in a deconstructed version of the model in four dimensions.
- Received 8 December 2011
- Corrected 10 May 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.181807
© 2012 American Physical Society
Corrections
10 May 2012
Erratum
Publisher’s Note: Spacetime as a Topological Insulator: Mechanism for the Origin of the Fermion Generations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 181807 (2012)]
David B. Kaplan and Sichun Sun
Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 209901 (2012)
Synopsis
Particle Families Come in Three
Published 3 May 2012
The existence of three families of fundamental particles may result from our universe behaving like a topological insulator, according to a theoretical proposal.
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