Gauging on the lattice and gapped/gapless topological phases

Abstract: In this work, we explore topological phases of matter obtained by effectively gauging or fermionizing the system, where the Gauss law constraint is only enforced energetically. In contrast to conventional gauging or fermionizion, the symmetry that is effectively gauged in low energy still generates a global symmetry that acts on the whole Hilbert space faithfully. This symmetry turns out to protect a non-trivial topological phase with other emergent symmetry, or can have a non-trivial 't Hooft anomaly. We provide a precise formula for the topological response action involving these symmetries in a general setup, as well as find a formula for 't Hooft anomalies. As an application, we apply the general treatment of the procedure to gapless systems and find various new gapless SPT phases, such as the one carrying the Gu-Wen fermionic anomalies at low energy.