Collective dynamics in holographic fractonic solids

Abstract: Fractonic phases of matter, a class of states in which collective excitations with constrained mobility exist, have recently emerged as a novel avenue for ergodicity breaking and garnered broad interest in condensed matter physics. In this work, we consider a (3+1)-dimensional holographic model of fractonic solids and investigate the low-energy collective dynamics systematically. By computing the quasinormal modes of black holes, we obtain all the hydrodynamic excitations on the boundary, including two acoustic phonons, a longitudinal diffusive mode as well as a fractonic subdiffusive mode with the dispersion $\omega \sim-ik^4$. In addition, it is found that the fracton mode remains gapless when translational symmetry is explicitly broken. These results suggest that fractonic excitations are inherently protected by the crystal-dipole symmetry in solids and are qualitatively unaffected by broken spacetime symmetries.