We discuss the quantum phase transition between a quantum nematic metallic state to an electron metallic smectic state in terms of an order-parameter theory coupled to fermionic quasiparticles. Both commensurate and incommensurate smectic (or stripe) cases are studied. Close to the quantum critical point (QCP), the spectrum of fluctuations of the nematic phase has low-energy ``fluctuating stripes.'' We study the quantum critical behavior and find evidence that, contrary to the classical case, the gauge-type of coupling between the nematic and smectic is irrelevant at this QCP. The collective modes of the electron smectic (or stripe) phase are also investigated. The effects of the low-energy bosonic modes on the fermionic quasiparticles are studied perturbatively, for both a model with full rotational symmetry and for a system with an underlying lattice, which has a discrete point group symmetry. We find that at the nematic-smectic critical point, due to the critical smectic fluctuations, the dynamics of the fermionic quasiparticles near several points on the Fermi surface, around which it is reconstructed, are not governed by a Landau Fermi liquid theory. Surprisingly, the quasiparticles in the smectic phase also exhibit non-Fermi liquid behavior. We also present a detailed analysis of the dynamical susceptibilities in the electron nematic phase close to this QCP (the fluctuating stripe regime) and in the electronic smectic phase.
We discuss the quantum phase transition between a quantum nematic metallic state to an electron metallic smectic state in terms of an order-parameter theory coupled to fermionic quasiparticles. Both commensurate and incommensurate smectic (or stripe) cases are studied. Close to the quantum critical point (QCP), the spectrum of fluctuations of the nematic phase has low-energy ``fluctuating stripes.'' We study the quantum critical behavior and find evidence that, contrary to the classical case, the gauge-type of coupling between the nematic and smectic is irrelevant at this QCP. The collective modes of the electron smectic (or stripe) phase are also investigated. The effects of the low-energy bosonic modes on the fermionic quasiparticles are studied perturbatively, for both a model with full rotational symmetry and for a system with an underlying lattice, which has a discrete point group symmetry. We find that at the nematic-smectic critical point, due to the critical smectic fluctuations, the dynamics of the fermionic quasiparticles near several points on the Fermi surface, around which it is reconstructed, are not governed by a Landau Fermi liquid theory. Surprisingly, the quasiparticles in the smectic phase also exhibit non-Fermi liquid behavior. We also present a detailed analysis of the dynamical susceptibilities in the electron nematic phase close to this QCP (the fluctuating stripe regime) and in the electronic smectic phase.
"This thesis is devoted to the investigation of the quantum liquid crystal phases in strongly correlated electronic systems. Such phases are characterized by their partially broken spatial symmetries and are observed in various strongly correlated systems as being summarized in Chapter 1. In quantum liquid crystal phases formed by fermions, behaviors beyond Landau's theory of the Fermi liquids appear naturally, signed by the absence of well-defined quasiparticle excitations. Although quantum liquid crystal phases often involve strong-coupling physics, the associated symmetry analysis can often be carried out also in a relatively weak coupling regime and this is the main approach taken in this thesis. Two different quantum liquid crystal phases, the nematic state and the smectic state, are studied in Chapters 2 and 3 respectively, by investigating various instabilities of a Landau Fermi liquid. A nematic phase is a state that breaks the rotational symmetry spontaneously but preserves the translational symmetries. It can be reached by the Pomeranchuk instability of a Landau Fermi liquid. The Pomeranchuk instability in the charge (spin-singlet) sector of a Fermi liquid was studied previously within a random phase approximation and by a high-dimensional bosonization method. In Chapter 2, we concentrate on the Pomeranchuk instability in the spin-triplet sector, and two different classes of ordered phases are discovered, dubbed the a and ,8-phases by analogy to the superfluid 3He-A and B-phases. The Fermi surfaces in the a-phases exhibit spontaneous anisotropic distortions, while in the ,8-phases the Fermi surfaces remain circular or spherical with topologically non-trivial spin configurations in momentum space. The behaviors of the low energy bosonic excitations are studied both in the order phases (a and .B) and at the quantum critical point separating the ordered phases from the Fermi liquid phase. In Chapter 3, the smectic phase and the quantum phase transition between a metallic nematic state and a metallic smectic phase are investigated using the random phase approximation, by considering the formation of a unidirectional charge density wave in an electronic nematic state. The associated quantum critical point is investigated within the Hertz-Millis approach. Non-Fermi liquid behaviors are discovered both at the quantum phase transition and in the smectic ordered phase. The theory we studied here provides a simple description for the so-called ""fluctuating stripe"" phase in cuprates. Similar to its classical counterpart, the phase transition between the nematic and smectic phases are described by a ""gauge-like"" theory as required by the rotational invariance in close analogy with the McMillan-deGennes theory of the smectic-nematic phase transition in classical liquid crystals. However, unlike the classical McMillandeGennes theory, in which the coupling between the ""gauge-like"" nematic fluctuations and the ""matter-like"" smectic fields is relevant, in the sense of renormalization group, this coupling is irrelevant at the quantum phase transition. This property enables the study of low energy fluctuations and the fate of fermions near this quantum critical point. In Chapter 4, quantum liquid crystal phases with a broken time-reversal symmetry are investigated. We start by studying the general scenario of timereversal symmetry breaking phases in the absence of magnetic ordering in systems with long-lived low-energy fermionic quasiparticle excitations in two dimensions. Using a Berry phase approach, we classified possible time-reversal symmetry breaking phases by the accompanying spatial symmetry breaking patterns. Two of the simplest situations are referred to as the type I state, which breaks simultaneously the space-inversion symmetry and the time-reversal symmetry, and the type I I state, in which the chiral symmetry is broken in addition to the breaking of the time-reversal symmetry. Although the starting point is general and has little relation with the quantum liquid crystal phases, both type I and type II states defined above are realized by (generalized) Pomeranchuk instabilities. In fact , a type I I state is usually a nematic state which also breaks the time-reversal symmetry. Interestingly, the type II states also shows spontaneously generated Hall effect even in the absence of a magnetic field, which is known as the spontaneous anomalous Hall effect. In Chapter 5, we investigate the stability of a quadratic band-crossing point in two-dimensional fermionic systems that provide an explicit example, within well controlled approximations, for the nematic ordering discussed in Chapter 2 and spontaneous anomalous Hall effect discussed in Chapter 4. At the non-interacting level, we show that a quadratic band-crossing point exists and is topologically stable when the Berry flux of this crossing point is ±27r and the point symmetry group at this point has either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries. Strikingly, we find that this would-be topologically stable quadratic band-crossing is marginally unstable against short-range interactions: a quadratic band-crossing point in two dimensions is unstable against shortrange repulsion, no matter how weak! Four ordered phases are found in this system, the quantum anomalous Hall state, the quantum spin Hall phase, the nematic phase, and the nematic-spin-nematic phase."
We study theoretically quantum melting transitions of stripe order in a metallic environment, and the associated reconstruction of the electronic Fermi surface. We show that such quantum phase transitions can be continuous in situations where the stripe melting occurs by proliferating pairs of dislocations in the stripe order parameter without proliferating single dislocations. We develop an intuitive picture of such phases as ``stripe loop metals'' where the fluctuating stripes form closed loops of arbitrary size at long distances. We obtain a controlled critical theory of a few different continuous quantum melting transitions of stripes in metals. At such a (deconfined) critical point, the fluctuations of the stripe order parameter are strongly coupled, yet tractable. They also decouple dynamically from the Fermi surface. We calculate many universal properties of these quantum critical points. In particular, we find that the full Fermi surface and the associated Landau quasiparticles remain sharply defined at the critical point. We discuss the phenomenon of Fermi surface reconstruction across this transition and the effect of quantum critical stripe fluctuations on the superconducting instability. We study possible relevance of our results to several phenomena in the cuprates.
Nematic fluctuations alter the low-energy electronic behavior and reshape the mean-field phase diagram. We study a two-dimensional nematic metal with a two-component internal degree of freedom. Near the quantum critical point (QCP), longitudinal nematic fluctuations generate the non-Fermi-liquid self-energy ∝∣ω∣2/3, whereas transverse fluctuations give a subleading logarithmic, marginal-Fermi-liquid correction. Nevertheless, the transverse sector dominates the correction to the phase diagram through a quantum order-by-disorder mechanism: the emergent nematic background reshapes the electronic spectrum, alters the decay of nematic bosons, and produces a negative singular free-energy correction. This correction reconstructs the phase diagram, drives the transition first order, and is described by a scaling function whose two asymptotic limits define two critical regimes with free-energy corrections scaling as R8/3 and R3, respectively, where R is the order-parameter magnitude; their powers follow from the competition between the characteristic momentum of normal-state nematic fluctuations and that of the ordered-state background. These two regimes are experimentally distinguishable through nematic-susceptibility hysteresis measurements. The corrected phase diagram shows that the enlarged nodal α phase masks the otherwise bare QCP, making it inaccessible; consequently, the logarithmic self-energy correction is by no means negligible at low energies.
We present a theory of the isotropic-nematic quantum phase transition in the composite Fermi liquid arising in half-filled Landau levels. We show that the quantum phase transition between the isotropic and the nematic phase is triggered by an attractive quadrupolar interaction between electrons, as in the case of conventional Fermi liquids. We derive the theory of the nematic state and of the phase transition. This theory is based on the flux attachment procedure, which maps an electron liquid in half-filled Landau levels into the composite Fermi liquid close to a nematic transition. We show that the local fluctuations of the nematic order parameters act as an effective dynamical metric interplaying with the underlying Chern-Simons gauge fields associated with the flux attachment. Both the fluctuations of the Chern-Simons gauge field and the nematic order parameter can destroy the composite fermion quasiparticles and drive the system into a non-Fermi liquid state. The effective-field theory for the isotropic-nematic phase transition is shown to have z=3 dynamical exponent due to the Landau damping of the dense Fermi system. We show that there is a Berry-phase-type term that governs the effective dynamics of the nematic order parameter fluctuations, which can be interpreted as a nonuniversal ``Hall viscosity'' of the dynamical metric. We also show that the effective-field theory of this compressible fluid has a Wen-Zee-type term. Both terms originate from the time-reversal breaking fluctuation of the Chern-Simons gauge fields. We present a perturbative (one-loop) computation of the Hall viscosity and also show that this term is also obtained by a Ward identity. We show that the topological excitation of the nematic fluid, the disclination, carries an electric charge. We show that a resonance observed in radio-frequency conductivity experiments can be interpreted as a Goldstone nematic mode gapped by lattice effects.
We discuss the finite temperature properties of the fermion correlation function near the fixed-point theory of the charge nematic quantum critical point (QCP) of a metallic Fermi system. We show that though the fixed-point theory is above its upper critical dimension, the equal-time fermion correlation function takes on a universal scaling form in the vicinity of the QCP. We find that in the quantum critical regime, this equal-time correlation function has an ultralocal behavior in space, while the low-frequency behavior of the equal-position autocorrelation function is that of a Fermi liquid up to subdominant terms. This behavior should also apply to other quantum phase transitions of metallic Fermi systems.
ω/T scaling and IR/UV-mixing in Ising-nematic quantum critical metals
The instability of a Fermi surface against Ising nematic order destroys the quasiparticle character of the low-energy degrees of freedom. Therefore, observables exhibit deviations from Fermi liquid behavior which gives rise to the term Ising nematic quantum critical metal. To obtain a theoretical description we use a finite-temperature version of Eliashberg theory which allows to treat the strong coupling between quantum and thermal fluctuations in the absence of well-defined quasiparticles. Here, we use this self-consistent, diagrammatic approach to compute, in particular, the nematic susceptibility and the non-Fermi liquid correlations. Upon decreasing the temperature, the susceptibility crosses over from a (TlogT)−1 to T−2/3 behavior, which is induced by the absence of quasiparticles and restores the Ising nematic critical scaling. Correspondingly, the fermions obey a simple ω/T scaling law at low enough temperatures. However, this regime is characterized by strong IR-UV mixing since the proportionality factors exhibit a dependence on the spectral width of the non-quasiparticle excitations and on the underlying lattice. Tuning the parameters of the model, therefore, gives rise to several scenarios for the breakdown of the scaling theory. We discuss them within the Eliashberg approach and estimate the related crossover scales. We also show that the leading order vertex corrections do not change the scaling with temperature or coupling constants.