Plasticity from Symmetry: A Gauge-Theoretic Framework
National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman（菲律宾大学迪里曼分校国立物理研究所）；Institute of Theoretical Physics, Wrocław University of Science and Technology（弗罗茨瓦夫科技大学理论物理研究所）
Plastic deformation is widely regarded as an intrinsically dissipative phenomenon and its theoretical description is largely phenomenological. We argue instead that plasticity possesses a non-dissipative, symmetry determined backbone: defect kinematics are fixed by symmetry prior to dissipation and separate from constitutive assumptions. Starting from the spontaneous breaking of spacetime symmetries in a crystalline phase, we construct an effective field theory in which elasticity and geometry reorganize into a coupled higher-rank tensor vector gauge structure. The gauge fields are not postulated, rather they emerge naturally from stress and defect conservation laws. Dislocations, disclinations, and torsional defects appear as gauge charges of non-integrable geometry whose continuity equations and mobility constraints follow directly from Gauss laws. This clarifies the long-standing ambiguity over which variables are fundamental in the gauge theory of defects and shows that plasticity admits an ideal gauge-theoretic formulation, with dissipative flow arising as a controlled deformation of this conservative theory.
University of Milan（米兰大学）；University of Greifswald（格赖夫斯瓦尔德大学）；University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学）；DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory（德文康姆陆军研究实验室）；Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune（印度科学教育与研究学院浦那分校）
