Metallic quantum critical phenomena are believed to play a key role in many strongly correlated materials, including high-temperature superconductors. Theoretically, the problem of quantum criticality in the presence of a Fermi surface has proven to be highly challenging. However, it has recently been realized that many models used to describe such systems are amenable to numerically exact solution by quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques, without suffering from the fermion sign problem. In this review, we examine the status of the understanding of metallic quantum criticality and the recent progress made by QMC simulations. We focus on the cases of spin-density wave and Ising nematic criticality. We describe the results obtained so far and their implications for superconductivity, non-Fermi liquid behavior, and transport near metallic quantum critical points. Some of the outstanding puzzles and future directions are highlighted.
Metallic quantum critical phenomena are believed to play a key role in many strongly correlated materials, including high-temperature superconductors. Theoretically, the problem of quantum criticality in the presence of a Fermi surface has proven to be highly challenging. However, it has recently been realized that many models used to describe such systems are amenable to numerically exact solution by quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques, without suffering from the fermion sign problem. In this review, we examine the status of the understanding of metallic quantum criticality and the recent progress made by QMC simulations. We focus on the cases of spin-density wave and Ising nematic criticality. We describe the results obtained so far and their implications for superconductivity, non-Fermi liquid behavior, and transport near metallic quantum critical points. Some of the outstanding puzzles and future directions are highlighted.
Plenty experimental evidence indicates that quantum critical phenomena give rise to much of the rich physics observed in strongly correlated itinerant electron systems such as the high temperature superconductors. A quantum critical point of particular interest is found at the zero-temperature onset of spin-density wave order in two- dimensional metals. The appropriate low-energy theory poses an exceptionally hard problem to analytic theory, therefore the unbiased and controlled numerical approach pursued in this thesis provides important contributions on the road to comprehensive understanding. After discussing the phenomenology of quantum criticality, a sign- problem-free determinantal quantum Monte Carlo approach is introduced and an extensive toolbox of numerical methods is described in a self-contained way. By the means of large-scale computer simulations we have solved a lattice realization of the universal effective theory of interest. The finite-temperature phase diagram, showing both a quasi-long-range spin-density wave ordered phase and a d-wave superconducting dome, is discussed in its entirety. Close to the quantum phase transition we find evidence for unusual scaling of the order parameter correlations and for non-Fermi liquid behavior at isolated hot spots on the Fermi surface.
In the last few decades, quantum criticality in itinerant electron systems has become a central focus of condensed matter physics. On the one hand, it represents a candidate mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity. On the other hand, it can lead to a breakdown of Fermi liquid theory. The formation of a comprehensive understanding of metallic quantum criticality has, however, been significantly hampered by the fact that in many-fermion systems, fluctuations of a critical order parameter can couple to extensive gapless modes on a finite Fermi surface. This interplay, while giving rise to intriguing physical phenomena, leads to strong electronic correlations, which are notoriously difficult to handle by analytic methods. In this thesis, we investigate metallic quantum criticality by means of large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations and contribute unbiased, rigorous results to the discussion. Focusing on antiferromagnetic spin-density wave ordering, we present the numerically exact phase diagram of a spin-fermion model whose solution has so far been out of reach. In particular, we highlight the emergence of high-temperature d-wave superconductivity and rigorously establish the quantum critical properties of the antiferromagnetic quantum critical point. Combining the Monte Carlo method with a quantum loop topography approach, we demonstrate that important features of quantum critical metals can be autonomously identified by machine learning of current-current correlations. This allows us to analyze the electronic transport characteristics of two quantum critical metals, including the spin-fermion model, over a large parameter range and leads to the identification of extended non-Fermi liquid regimes in their respective phase diagrams.
We compute transport and thermodynamic properties of a two-band spin-fermion model describing itinerant fermions in two dimensions interacting via Z2 antiferromagnetic quantum critical fluctuations by means of a sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo approach. We show that the phase diagram of this model indeed contains a d-wave superconducting phase at low enough temperatures. However, a crucial question that arises is whether a non-Fermi-liquid metallic regime exists above Tc, exhibiting hallmark strange-metal transport phenomenology. Interestingly, we find that this version of the model describes a non-Fermi-liquid metallic regime that displays an approximately T-linear resistivity above Tc for a strong fermion-boson interaction. Using the Nernst-Einstein relation, our QMC results also show that this strange metal phase exhibits a crossover from being characterized by a charge compressibility given approximately by ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{c}\ensuremath{\sim}1/T$ at high temperatures to being described by a charge diffusivity consistent with the scaling ${D}_{c}\ensuremath{\sim}1/T$ at low temperatures. Therefore, our paper adds support to the view that the Z2 antiferromagnetic spin-fermion model at strong coupling can be considered a minimal model that describes both unconventional superconductivity and strange metallicity, which are fundamentally interconnected in many important strongly correlated quantum materials.
We report on numerically exact determinantal quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the onset of spin-density-wave (SDW) order in itinerant electron systems captured by a sign-problem-free two-dimensional lattice model. Extensive measurements of the SDW correlations in the vicinity of the phase transition reveal that the critical dynamics of the bosonic order parameter are well described by a dynamical critical exponent z=2, consistent with Hertz-Millis theory, but are found to follow a finite-temperature dependence that does not fit the predicted behavior of the same theory. The presence of critical SDW fluctuations is found to have a strong impact on the fermionic quasiparticles, giving rise to a dome-shaped superconducting phase near the quantum critical point. In the superconducting state we find a gap function that has an opposite sign between the two bands of the model and is nearly constant along the Fermi surface of each band. Above the superconducting Tc, our numerical simulations reveal a nearly temperature and frequency independent self-energy causing a strong suppression of the low-energy quasiparticle weight in the vicinity of the hot spots on the Fermi surface. This indicates a clear breakdown of Fermi liquid theory around these points.
Metallic quantum criticality is among the central themes in the understanding of correlated electronic systems, and converging results between analytical and numerical approaches are still under review. In this work, we develop a state-of-the-art large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulation technique and systematically investigate the itinerant quantum critical point on a 2D square lattice with antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations at wavevector [Formula: see text]-a problem that resembles the Fermi surface setup and low-energy antiferromagnetic fluctuations in high-Tc cuprates and other critical metals, which might be relevant to their non-Fermi-liquid behaviors. System sizes of [Formula: see text] ([Formula: see text]) are comfortably accessed, and the quantum critical scaling behaviors are revealed with unprecedented high precision. We found that the antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations introduce effective interactions among fermions and the fermions in return render the bare bosonic critical point into a different universality, different from both the bare Ising universality class and the Hertz-Mills-Moriya RPA prediction. At the quantum critical point, a finite anomalous dimension [Formula: see text] is observed in the bosonic propagator, and fermions at hotspots evolve into a non-Fermi liquid. In the antiferromagnetically ordered metallic phase, fermion pockets are observed as the energy gap opens up at the hotspots. These results bridge the recent theoretical and numerical developments in metallic quantum criticality and can serve as the stepping stone toward final understanding of the 2D correlated fermions interacting with gapless critical excitations.
Reliable simulations of correlated quantum systems, including high-temperature superconductors and frustrated magnets, are increasingly desired nowadays to further our understanding of essential features in such systems. Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) is a unique numerically exact and intrinsically unbiased method to simulate interacting quantum many-body systems. More importantly, when QMC simulations are free from the notorious fermion sign problem, they can reliably simulate interacting quantum models with large system size and low temperature to reveal low-energy physics such as spontaneously broken symmetries and universal quantum critical behaviors. Here, we concisely review recent progress made in developing new sign-problem-free QMC algorithms, including those employing Majorana representation and those utilizing hot-spot physics. We also discuss applications of these novel sign-problem-free QMC algorithms in simulations of various interesting quantum many-body models. Finally, we discuss possible future directions of designing sign-problem-free QMC methods.