Emergence of supersymmetry at a critical point of a lattice model

Abstract

Supersymmetry is a symmetry between a boson and a fermion. Although there is no apparent supersymmetry in nature, its mathematical consistency and appealing property have led many people to believe that supersymmetry may exist in nature in the form of a spontaneously broken symmetry. In this paper, we explore an alternative possibility by which supersymmetry is realized in nature, that is, supersymmetry dynamically emerges in the low energy limit of a non-supersymmetric condensed matter system. We propose a 2+1D lattice model which exhibits an emergent space-time supersymmetry at a quantum critical point. It is shown that there is only one relevant perturbation at the supersymmetric critical point in the $\epsilon$-expansion and the critical theory is the two copies of the Wess-Zumino theory with four supercharges. Exact critical exponents are predicted.