Planons and their Carroll-Galilei symmetries

Abstract

We study the dynamics of planons, particles whose mobility is restricted to a plane, through the classification of coadjoint orbits and unitary irreducible representations of the centrally extended planon group. Planons are closely related to Galilei/Bargmann symmetries and, remarkably, the often-ignored massless coadjoint orbits of the Galilei group play a central r\^ole in their description. We thereby provide a nontrivial physical interpretation of these orbits. We further construct classical and quantum dipoles as bound states of monopoles, where the restricted planar motion arises from a novel mixed Carroll-Galilei symmetry. We also argue that the simplest and already experimentally realised systems with Carroll symmetry are in crystals.