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arXiv:1606.00918 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Finite-temperature scaling close to Ising-nematic quantum critical points in two-dimensional metals

Matthias Punk

Published Nov 7, 2016• 13 citations
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Abstract

We study finite-temperature properties of metals close to an Ising-nematic quantum critical point in two spatial dimensions. In particular we show that at any finite temperature there is a regime where order parameter fluctuations are characterized by a dynamical critical exponent $z=2$, in contrast to $z=3$ found at zero temperature. Our results are based on a simple Eliashberg-type approach, which gives rise to a boson self-energy proportional to $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}/\ensuremath{\gamma}(T)$ at small momenta, where $\ensuremath{\gamma}(T)$ is the temperature dependent fermion scattering rate. These findings might shed some light on recent Monte Carlo simulations at finite temperature, where results consistent with $z=2$ were found.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.94.195113

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We study the effects of finite temperature on normal state properties of a metal near a quantum critical point to an antiferromagnetic or Ising-nematic state.At T ¼ 0, bosonic and fermionic self-energies are traditionally computed within Eliashberg theory, and they obey scaling relations with characteristic power laws.Corrections to Eliashberg theory break these power laws but only at very small frequencies.Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations have shown that, already at much larger frequencies, there are strong systematic deviations from these predictions, casting doubt on the validity of the theoretical analysis.We extend Eliashberg theory to finite T and argue that in the T range accessible in the QMC simulations above the superconducting transition, the scaling forms for both fermionic and bosonic self-energies are quite different from those at T ¼ 0. We compare finite T results with QMC data and find good agreement for both systems.We argue that this agreement resolves the key apparent contradiction between the theory and the QMC simulations.
The scaling of the transition temperature into an ordered phase close to a quantum critical point as well as the order parameter fluctuations inside the quantum critical region provide valuable information about universal properties of the underlying quantum critical point. Here, we employ quantum Monte Carlo simulations to examine these relations in detail for two-dimensional quantum systems that exhibit a finite-temperature Ising-transition line in the vicinity of a quantum critical point that belongs to the universality class of either (i) the three-dimensional Ising model for the case of the quantum Ising model in a transverse magnetic field on the square lattice or (ii) the chiral Ising transition for the case of a half-filled system of spinless fermions on the honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor repulsion. While the first case allows large-scale simulations to assess the scaling predictions to a high precision in terms of the known values for the critical exponents at the quantum critical point, for the later case, we extract values of the critical exponents $\ensuremath{\nu}$ and $\ensuremath{\eta}$, related to the order parameter fluctuations, which we discuss in relation to other recent estimates from ground-state quantum Monte Carlo calculations as well as analytical approaches.
ω/Tω/Tω/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 (Tlog⁡T)−1(T \log T)^{-1}(TlogT)−1 to T−2/3T^{-2/3}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/Tω/Tω/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.
This thesis investigates the low-energy theory of two-dimensional metals with singular forward scattering in the charge channel. Singular forward scattering occurs for example at a nematic quantum critical point or when electrons at a finite density are coupled to a U(1) gauge field. The universal scaling laws present in the quantum critical regime are strongly affected by quantum fluctuations. In this work, fluctuation effects are systematically taken into account within a field-theoretic renormalization group approach. The primary object of study are the effective N-point density vertices, as the determination of their frequency and momentum dependence allows to precisely characterize the fluctuation contributions in each loop order. Two simple rules are derived which allow to improve the power counting estimate of N-point density vertices in the UV. Using these rules it is possible to exclude polynomially divergent contributions to the bosonic self-energy. The improved power counting not only recovers the results of previous explicit calculations up to three loop order in a general scheme but also predicts the appearance of singular self-energy corrections to the bosonic self-energy from diagrams with four loops. In the second part this prediction is confirmed by an explicit calculation. To this end a certain subset of diagrams of four loop order is calculated, which suffices to establish the presence of a singular contribution. Surprisingly, the singularity has the form of a power of a logarithm, preventing the interpretation as a finite renormalization of the dynamical critical exponent in the low-energy theory. The possible physical consequences of this behavior for the considered two-dimensional metals with singular forward scattering are outlined.
We analyze general properties of the perturbation expansion for two-dimensional quantum critical metals with singular forward scattering, such as metals at an Ising nematic quantum critical point and metals coupled to a U(1)U(1)U(1) gauge field. We derive asymptotic properties of fermion loops appearing as subdiagrams of the contributing Feynman diagrams---for large and small momenta. Substantial cancellations are found in important scaling limits, which reduce the degree of divergence of Feynman diagrams with boson legs. Implementing these cancellations, we obtain improved power-counting estimates that yield the true degree of divergence. In particular, we find that perturbative contributions to the boson self-energy are generally ultraviolet convergent for a dynamical critical exponent z<3z<3z<3, and divergent beyond three-loop order for $z\ensuremath{\ge}3$.
Understanding optical conductivity data in the optimally doped cuprates in the framework of quantum criticality requires a strongly coupled quantum critical metal which violates hyperscaling. In the simplest scaling framework, hyperscaling violation can be characterized by a single nonzero exponent $\ensuremath{\theta}$, so that in a spatially isotropic state in ddd spatial dimensions, the specific heat scales with temperature as ${T}^{(d\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\theta})/z}$, and the optical conductivity scales with frequency as ${\ensuremath{\omega}}^{(d\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\theta}\ensuremath{-}2)/z}$ for $\ensuremath{\omega}\ensuremath{\gg}T$, where zzz is the dynamic critical exponent defined by the scaling of the fermion response function transverse to the Fermi surface. We study the Ising-nematic critical point, using the controlled dimensional regularization method proposed by Dalidovich and Lee [Phys. Rev. B 88, 245106 (2013)]. We find that hyperscaling is violated, with $\ensuremath{\theta}=1$ in d=2d=2d=2. We expect that similar results apply to Fermi surfaces coupled to gauge fields in d=2d=2d=2.