Epithelia, hyperuniformity and the Abelian Higgs mechanism

Confluent layers of epithelial cells are believed to hide a subtle form of positional order, which allows them to coordinate microscopic forces and achieve mechanical functionality at the mesoscopic length scale. In support of this possibility, recent numerical studies found evidence of hyperuniformity across the solid-liquid transition of various cell-resolved models of epithelia. In this talk I will show how this property originates from an Abelian version of the Higgs mechanism of particle physics, resulting from the geometric coupling between cells' shape and orientation at confluency.