Unbroken continuous translational invariance is often taken as a basic assumption in discussions of spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB), which singles out SSB of translational invariance itself as an exceptional case. We present a framework that allows us to treat translational invariance on the same footing as other symmetries. It is shown that existing theorems on SSB can be straightforwardly extended to this general case. As a concrete application, we analyze the Nambu-Goldstone modes in a (ferromagnetic) supersolid. We prove on the ground of the general theorems that the Bogoliubov mode stemming from a spontaneously broken internal U(1) symmetry and the longitudinal phonon due to a crystalline order are distinct physical modes.

• Received 28 January 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.085010