Xiao-Gang Wen

people believe that all possible states of matter are described by Landau symmetry-breaking theory. Recently we find that string-net condensation provide a mechanism to produce states of matter beyond the symmetry-breaking description. The collective excitations of the string-net condensed states turn out to be, photons and electrons (and other gauge bosons and fermions).  our vacuum is a string-net condensed state. Light and electrons  have a unified origin -- string-net condensation.


arXiv:cond-mat/0508020v2