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arXiv:1412.1098

Beyond Particles: Unparticles in Strongly Correlated Electron Matter

Philip Phillips

Published Jul 22, 2015• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

I am concerned in these lectures with the breakdown of the particle concept in strongly correlated electron matter. I first show that the standard procedure for counting particles, namely Luttinger's theorem, breaks down anytime pole-like excitations are replaced by ones that have a divergent self-energy. Such a breakdown obtains in electronic systems whose pole-like excitations do not extend to the edge of the Brillouin zone, as in Fermi arcs in the cuprates. Since any non-trivial infrared dynamics in strongly correlated electron matter must be controlled by a critical fixed point, unparticles are the natural candidate to explain the presence of charged degrees of freedom that have no particle content. The continuous mass formulation of unparticles is recast as an action in anti de Sitter space. Such an action serves as the generating functional for the propagator. This mapping fixes the scaling dimension of the unparticle to be $d_U=d/2+\sqrt{d^2+4}/2$ and ensures that the corresponding propagator has zeros with $d$ the spacetime dimension of the unparticle field. The general {\it dynamical} mechanism by which bulk operators, such as the Pauli term, couple to the scaling dimension of the boundary operator and thereby lead to a vanishing of the spectral weight at zero energy is reviewed in the context of unparticles and zeros. The analogue of the BCS gap equations with unparticles indicates that the transition temperature increases as the attractive interaction strength decreases, indicating that unparticles are highly susceptible to a superconducting instability.

DOI
10.1142/9789814704090_0005

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Since any nontrivial infrared dynamics in strongly correlated electron matter must be controlled by a critical fixed point, we argue that the form of the single-particle propagator can be deduced simply by imposing scale invariance. As a consequence, the unparticle picture proposed by Georgi14 is the natural candidate to describe such dynamics. Unparticle stuff is scale-invariant matter with no particular mass. Scale invariance dictates that the propagator has an algebraic form which can admit zeros and hence is a candidate to explain the ubiquitous pseudogap state of the cuprates. We refer to the nonperturbative electronic state formed out of unparticles as an un-Fermi liquid. We show that the underlying action of the continuous mass formulation of unparticles can be recast as an action in anti--de Sitter space which serves as the generating functional for the propagator. We find that this mapping fixes the scaling dimension of the unparticle to be ${d}_{U}=d/2+\sqrt{{d}^{2}+4}/2$ and ensures that the corresponding propagator has zeros with $d$ the space-time dimension of the unparticle field. Should $d=2+1$, unparticles acquire the nontrivial phase $2\ensuremath{\pi}{d}_{U}$ upon interchange. Because ${d}_{U}$ is noninteger and in general not half integer, clockwise and counterclockwise interchange of unparticles do not lead to the same phase and time-reversal symmetry is broken spontaneously as reported in numerous experiments in the pseudogap phase of the cuprates. The possible relevance of this mechanism to such experiments is discussed. We then formulate the analogous BCS gap using unparticles and find that in contrast to the Fermi-liquid case, the transition temperature increases as the attractive interaction strength decreases, indicating that unparticles are highly susceptible to a superconducting instability.

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I am concerned in these lectures with the breakdown of the particle concept in strongly correlated electron matter. I first show that the standard procedure for counting particles, namely Luttinger's theorem, breaks down anytime pole-like excitations are replaced by ones that have a divergent self-energy. Such a breakdown obtains in electronic systems whose pole-like excitations do not extend to the edge of the Brillouin zone, as in Fermi arcs in the cuprates. Since any non-trivial infrared dynamics in strongly correlated electron matter must be controlled by a critical fixed point, unparticles are the natural candidate to explain the presence of charged degrees of freedom that have no particle content. The continuous mass formulation of unparticles is recast as an action in anti de Sitter space. Such an action serves as the generating functional for the propagator. This mapping fixes the scaling dimension of the unparticle to be dU=d/2+d2+4/2d_U=d/2+\sqrt{d^2+4}/2dU​=d/2+d2+4​/2 and ensures that the corresponding propagator has zeros with ddd the spacetime dimension of the unparticle field. The general {\it dynamical} mechanism by which bulk operators, such as the Pauli term, couple to the scaling dimension of the boundary operator and thereby lead to a vanishing of the spectral weight at zero energy is reviewed in the context of unparticles and zeros. The analogue of the BCS gap equations with unparticles indicates that the transition temperature increases as the attractive interaction strength decreases, indicating that unparticles are highly susceptible to a superconducting instability.
Since any nontrivial infrared dynamics in strongly correlated electron matter must be controlled by a critical fixed point, we argue that the form of the single-particle propagator can be deduced simply by imposing scale invariance. As a consequence, the unparticle picture proposed by Georgi14 is the natural candidate to describe such dynamics. Unparticle stuff is scale-invariant matter with no particular mass. Scale invariance dictates that the propagator has an algebraic form which can admit zeros and hence is a candidate to explain the ubiquitous pseudogap state of the cuprates. We refer to the nonperturbative electronic state formed out of unparticles as an un-Fermi liquid. We show that the underlying action of the continuous mass formulation of unparticles can be recast as an action in anti--de Sitter space which serves as the generating functional for the propagator. We find that this mapping fixes the scaling dimension of the unparticle to be dU=d/2+d2+4/2{d}_{U}=d/2+\sqrt{{d}^{2}+4}/2dU​=d/2+d2+4​/2 and ensures that the corresponding propagator has zeros with ddd the space-time dimension of the unparticle field. Should d=2+1d=2+1d=2+1, unparticles acquire the nontrivial phase $2\ensuremath{\pi}{d}_{U}$ upon interchange. Because dU{d}_{U}dU​ is noninteger and in general not half integer, clockwise and counterclockwise interchange of unparticles do not lead to the same phase and time-reversal symmetry is broken spontaneously as reported in numerous experiments in the pseudogap phase of the cuprates. The possible relevance of this mechanism to such experiments is discussed. We then formulate the analogous BCS gap using unparticles and find that in contrast to the Fermi-liquid case, the transition temperature increases as the attractive interaction strength decreases, indicating that unparticles are highly susceptible to a superconducting instability.
Since any non-trivial infrared dynamics in strongly correlated electron matter must be controlled by a critical fixed point, we argue that the form of the single-particle propagator can be deduced simply by imposing scale invariance. As a consequence, the unparticle picture proposed by Georgi\cite {georgi} is the natural candidate to describe such dynamics. Unparticle stuff is scale-invariant matter with no particular mass. Scale invariance dictates that the propagator has an algebraic form which can admit zeros and hence is a candidate to explain the ubiquitous pseudogap state of the cuprates. The non-perturbative electronic state formed out of unparticles we refer to as an un-Fermi liquid. Philip W. Phillips, Brandon W. Langley, Jimmy A. Hutasoit show that the underlying action of the continuous mass formulation of unparticles can be recast exactly as an action in anti de Sitter space. They find that this mapping fixes the scaling dimension of the unparticle to be dU=d/2+d2+4 The full paper: http://www.iiste.org/PDFshare/APTA-PAGENO-354010-358233.pdf
Recent photoemission spectroscopy measurements (T. J. Reber et al., arXiv:1509.01611) on cuprate superconductors have inferred that over a wide range of doping, the imaginary part of the electron self-energy scales as ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}^{\ensuremath{''}}\ensuremath{\sim}{({\ensuremath{\omega}}^{2}+{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{2}{T}^{2})}^{a}$ with a=1a=1a=1 in the overdoped Fermi-liquid state and a<0.5a<0.5a<0.5 in the optimal to underdoped regime. We show that this non-Fermi-liquid scaling behavior can naturally be explained by the presence of a scale-invariant state of matter known as unparticles. We evaluate analytically the electron self-energy due to interactions with fermionic unparticles. We find that, in agreement with experiments, the imaginary part of the self-energy scales with respect to temperature and energy as ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}^{\ensuremath{''}}\ensuremath{\sim}{T}^{2+2\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ and ${\ensuremath{\omega}}^{2+2\ensuremath{\alpha}}$, where $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ is the anomalous dimension of the unparticle propagator. In addition, the calculated occupancy and susceptibility of fermionic unparticles, unlike those of normal fermions, have significant spectral weights even at high energies. This unconventional behavior is attributed to the branch cut in the unparticle propagator which broadens the unparticle spectral function over a wide energy range and nontrivially alters the scattering phase space by enhancing (suppressing) the intrinsic susceptibility at low energies for negative (positive) $\ensuremath{\alpha}$. Our work presents evidence suggesting that unparticles might be important low-energy degrees of freedom in strongly coupled systems such as the cuprate superconductors.
In periodic systems of interacting electrons, Fermi and Luttinger surfaces refer to the locations within the Brillouin zone of poles and zeros, respectively, of the single-particle Green's function at zero energy and temperature. Such difference in analytic properties underlies the emergence of well-defined quasiparticles close to a Fermi surface, in contrast to their supposed non-existence close to a Luttinger surface, where the single-particle density-of-states vanishes at zero energy. We here show that, contrary to such common belief, dispersive 'quasiparticles' with infinite lifetime do exist also close to a pseudo-gapped Luttinger surface. Thermodynamic and dynamic properties of such 'quasiparticles' are just those of conventional ones. For instance, they yield well-defined quantum oscillations in Luttinger surface and linear-in-temperature specific heat, which is striking given the vanishing density of states of physical electrons, but actually not uncommon in strongly correlated materials.
"Strong electron correlation phenomena are ubiquitous, such as unconventional superconductivity and the metal-insulator transitions. Having a proper understanding of strongly correlated electron systems requires a non-perturbative analysis because Fermi liquid theory inevitably breaks down due to the strong correlation. In this thesis, we will study two non-perturbative approaches to tackle strongly correlated electronic system: 1.) multi-dimensional bosonization and 2.) the AdS/CFT correspondence. Multidimensional bosonization is the generalization of bosonization to spatial dimensions larger than one. The bosonized theory is an effective field theory in terms of the bosonic particle-hole fluctuations in different patches of the Fermi surface. The bosonized theory is quadratic and hence can be solved non-perturbatively. The AdS/CFT correspondence is a conjecture that d-dimensional field theory is dual to a d+1 dimensional quantum gravitational theory. Problems in strongly coupled field theory then have an equivalent description using weakly interacting gravitational theory, allowing a non-perturbative analysis. Chapter 1 will serve as an introduction. We will review several experiments which show a breakdown of Fermi liquid theory. Formalisms for multidimensional bosonization and the AdS/CFT correspondence will then be reviewed. In chapter 2, the two-orbital Hubbard model with degenerate d{xz} and d{yz} orbitals are investigated. We apply multidimensional bosonization to solve this problem exactly and discover a z=3 overdamped collective modes that emerges at the orbital-ordering quantum critical point. These modes modify the single-particle density of states and lead to non-Fermi liquid behavior which can provide a possible explanation for the recently observed zero-bias enhancement in the point contact spectroscopy signal on iron pnictides. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 discuss the applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence to model various condensed matter systems. In chapter 3, We consider an interaction term between a bulk spinor field and a gauge field in the Reissner-Nordstr\""om AdS background. When the Pauli interaction term is large enough, a dynamical gap is generated and spectral weight transfer is observed in the spectral density, mimicking the behavior of the Hubbard model. We further consider the finite temperature case and discover that the ratio between the dynamical gap and the critical temperature has the same order as that of VO^2. The Pauli coupling is also studied in the superconducting background. Chapter 4 consider the propagation of a neutral scalar field in the geometry called the electron star. The electron star has Lifshitz scaling with finite dynamical critical exponent at the interior, which is suitable for the modeling of quantum criticality and quantum phase transition with a neutral order parameter, for example for antiferromagnetism. We find that the quantum phase transition has the Berezinski-Kosterlitz-Thouless characteristic and the dynamical critical exponent can change across the quantum critical point. In chapter 5, we construct a gravity dual of the nematic phase by studying the condensation of a spin-two field in the Schwarzschild-AdS background. The condensation of a spin-two field can distort the rotational symmetry of the Fermi surface as long as the spin-two field is coupled to a probe spinor field in the bulk gravity dual."
I review two classes of strong coupling problems in condensed matter physics, and describe insights gained by application of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The first class concerns non-zero temperature dynamics and transport in the vicinity of quantum critical points described by relativistic field theories. I describe how relativistic structures arise in models of physical interest, present results for their quantum critical crossover functions and magneto-thermoelectric hydrodynamics. The second class concerns symmetry breaking transitions of two-dimensional systems in the presence of gapless electronic excitations at isolated points or along lines (i.e. Fermi surfaces) in the Brillouin zone. I describe the scaling structure of a recent theory of the Ising-nematic transition in metals, and discuss its possible connection to theories of Fermi surfaces obtained from simple AdS duals.