Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 43: Poster: Statistical Physics
DY 43.19: Poster
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 15:00–18:00, P5
Critical behaviour of ferroelectrics with divergence-free polarization — •Svitlana Kondovych1, Asle Sudbø2, and Flavio S. Nogueira1 — 1Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, Helmholzstr. 20, D-01069 Dresden, Germany — 2Center for Quantum Spintronics, Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
Unconventional phase transitions often display unusually large anomalous dimensions, often attributed to fractionalization and emergent gauge fields [1]. Here we show that similar behaviour can arise without fractionalization when the order parameter is constrained to be divergence-free, as occurs in ferroelectrics where the polarization P→ remains locally charge-neutral, divP→=0 [2]. This constraint forces polarization into loop-like textures and reshapes the critical behaviour.
Our analysis reveals a new universality class in which internal symmetry becomes intrinsically linked to spatial dimensionality [3]. The resulting critical point exhibits strongly enhanced fluctuations and a remarkably large anomalous dimension. These findings show that conventional ferroic materials can exhibit non-Landau criticality driven by local conservation laws. This reveals a new conceptual pathway for unconventional critical phenomena and suggests nanoscale ferroelectrics as experimentally accessible platform for exploring these ideas.
[1] T. Senthil, et al., Science 303:1490 (2004). [2] I. A. Lukyanchuk, et al., Phys. Rep. 1110:1 (2025). [3] S. Kondovych, A. Sudbø, F. S. Nogueira, arXiv:2510.13960 (2025).
Keywords: unconventional criticality; ferroelectrics; electric polarization; critical exponents; renormalization group