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Can phases shift without any symmetry secretly breaking?
Alison Warman, Yuhan Gai, Sakura Schafer-Nameki
May 29, 2026
Phase transitions normally work by breaking symmetry: water freezes when it loses rotational freedom, for instance. This work identifies "twin phases"—distinct states whose order parameters belong to the same symmetry charge—that can transform into each other without breaking any symmetry at all, even hidden ones. The finding challenges the foundational Landau framework using finite group symmetries in 1+1 dimensions.
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