Abstract Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of correlated electron systems provide unbiased information about system behavior at a quantum critical point (QCP) and can verify or disprove the existing theories of non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior at a QCP. However, simulations are carried out at a finite temperature, where quantum critical features are masked by finite-temperature effects. Here, we present a theoretical framework within which it is possible to separate thermal and quantum effects and extract the information about NFL physics at T = 0. We demonstrate our method for a specific example of 2D fermions near an Ising ferromagnetic QCP. We show that one can extract from QMC data the zero-temperature form of fermionic self-energy Σ( ω ) even though the leading contribution to the self-energy comes from thermal effects. We find that the frequency dependence of Σ( ω ) agrees well with the analytic form obtained within the Eliashberg theory of dynamical quantum criticality, and obeys ω 2/3 scaling at low frequencies. Our results open up an avenue for QMC studies of quantum critical metals.
Abstract Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations of correlated electron systems provide unbiased information about system behavior at a quantum critical point (QCP) and can verify or disprove the existing theories of non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior at a QCP. However, simulations are carried out at a finite temperature, where quantum critical features are masked by finite-temperature effects. Here, we present a theoretical framework within which it is possible to separate thermal and quantum effects and extract the information about NFL physics at T = 0. We demonstrate our method for a specific example of 2D fermions near an Ising ferromagnetic QCP. We show that one can extract from QMC data the zero-temperature form of fermionic self-energy Σ( ω ) even though the leading contribution to the self-energy comes from thermal effects. We find that the frequency dependence of Σ( ω ) agrees well with the analytic form obtained within the Eliashberg theory of dynamical quantum criticality, and obeys ω 2/3 scaling at low frequencies. Our results open up an avenue for QMC studies of quantum critical metals.
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.
Non-Fermi liquids (NFLs) are a class of strongly interacting gapless fermionic systems without long-lived quasiparticle excitations.An important group of NFL models feature itinerant fermions coupled to soft bosonic fluctuations near a quantum-critical point and are widely believed to capture the essential physics of many unconventional superconductors.However, numerically, the direct observation of a canonical NFL behavior in such systems, characterized by a power-law form in the Green's function, has been elusive.Here, we consider a Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK)-like model with random Yukawa interaction between critical bosons and fermions (dubbed the Yukawa-SYK model).We show that it is immune from the minus-sign problem and hence can be solved exactly via large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulation beyond the large-N limit accessible to analytical approaches.Our simulation demonstrates that the Yukawa-SYK model features "self-tuned quantum criticality"; namely, the system is critical independent of the bosonic bare mass.We put these results to the test at finite N, and our unbiased numerics reveal clear evidence of these exotic quantum-critical NFL properties-the power-law behavior in the Green's function of fermions and bosons-which propels the theoretical understanding of critical Planckian metals and unconventional superconductors.
Abstract Non-Fermi liquid and unconventional quantum critical points (QCP) with strong fractionalization are two exceptional phenomena beyond the classic condensed matter doctrines, both of which could occur in strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. This work demonstrates that using a controlled method one can construct a non-Fermi liquid within a considerable energy window based on the unique physics of unconventional QCPs. We will focus on the ‘nearly-marginal non-Fermi liquid’, defined as a state whose fermion self-energy scales as Σ f (i ω ) ∼ i sgn( ω )| ω | α with α close to 1 in a considerable energy window. The nearly-marginal non-fermi liquid is obtained by coupling an electron fermi surface to unconventional QCPs that are beyond the Landau’s paradigm. This mechanism relies on the observation that the anomalous dimension η of the order parameter of these unconventional QCPs can be close to 1, which is significantly larger than conventional Landau phase transitions, for example the Wilson–Fisher fixed points. The fact that η ∼ 1 justifies a perturbative renormalization group calculation proposed earlier. Various candidate QCPs that meet this desired condition are proposed.
Non-Fermi liquids are an important topic in condensed matter physics, as their characteristics challenge the framework of traditional Fermi liquid theory and reveal the complex behavior of electrons in strongly interacting systems. Both the experimentally observed smeared region and the theoretically predicted marginal Fermi liquid suggest that spatial disorder seems to be an important driver of these phenomena. By performing large-scale determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC) simulations in the ferromagnetic spin-fermion model at finite N, beyond the large-N used in previous theoretical work, we investigated the role of spatial disorder in the critical Fermi surface (FS) of this model. We proposed a corrected theory of our system, which is based on a modified Eliashberg theory and a universal theory of strange metals. This theory agrees well with the data obtained from DQMC, particularly in capturing the ωlnω type self-energy characteristic of marginal Fermi liquid behavior, and observing the linear-in-temperature resistivity. Our findings offer strong and unbiased validation of the universal theory of strange metals, broaden the applicability of the modified Eliashberg theory, and provide insights for numerically searching for marginal Fermi liquid and linear-in-temperature resistivity.
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.
Non-Fermi liquid physics is ubiquitous in strongly correlated metals, manifesting itself in anomalous transport properties, such as a T-linear resistivity in experiments. However, its theoretical understanding in terms of microscopic models is lacking, despite decades of conceptual work and attempted numerical simulations. Here we demonstrate that a combination of sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo sampling and quantum loop topography, a physics-inspired machine-learning approach, can map out the emergence of non-Fermi liquid physics in the vicinity of a quantum critical point (QCP) with little prior knowledge. Using only three parameter points for training the underlying neural network, we are able to robustly identify a stable non-Fermi liquid regime tracing the fans of metallic QCPs at the onset of both spin-density wave and nematic order. In particular, we establish for the first time that a spin-density wave QCP commands a wide fan of non-Fermi liquid region that funnels into the quantum critical point. Our study thereby provides an important proof-of-principle example that new physics can be detected via unbiased machine-learning approaches.