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arXiv:2409.02993 · Journal of High Energy Physics

An effective framework for strange metallic transport

Benoît Douçot, Ayan Mukhopadhyay, Giuseppe Policastro, Sutapa Samanta, Hareram Swain

Published Dec 17, 2024• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A bstract Semi-holography, originally proposed as a model for conducting lattice electrons coupled to a holographic critical sector, leads to an effective theory of non-Fermi liquids with only a few relevant interactions on the Fermi surface in the large N limit. A refined version of such theories has only two effective couplings, which give holographic and Fermi-liquid-like contributions to the self-energy, respectively. We show that a low co-dimension sub-manifold exists in the space of refined semi-holographic theories in which strange metallic behavior is manifested and which can be obtained just by tuning the ratio of the two couplings. On this sub-manifold, the product of the spectral function and the temperature is approximately independent of the critical exponent, the Fermi energy, and the temperature at all frequencies and near the Fermi surface when expressed in terms of suitably scaled momentum and frequency variables. This quasi-universal behavior leads to linear-in- T dc resistivity and Planckian dissipation over a large range of temperatures, and we also obtain T −3 scaling of the Hall conductivity at higher temperatures. The quasi-universal spectral function also fits well with photoemission spectroscopic data without varying the critical exponent with the doping. Combining with the results for optical conductivity, we construct a generalized version of Drude phenomenology for strange-metallic behavior, which satisfies non-trivial consistency tests. Finally, we discuss a possible dynamical mechanism for the fine-tuning of the ratio of the two couplings necessary to realize the strange metallic behavior in a typical state.

DOI
10.1007/jhep12(2024)118

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A bstract Semi-holography, originally proposed as a model for conducting lattice electrons coupled to a holographic critical sector, leads to an effective theory of non-Fermi liquids with only a few relevant interactions on the Fermi surface in the large N limit. A refined version of such theories has only two effective couplings, which give holographic and Fermi-liquid-like contributions to the self-energy, respectively. We show that a low co-dimension sub-manifold exists in the space of refined semi-holographic theories in which strange metallic behavior is manifested and which can be obtained just by tuning the ratio of the two couplings. On this sub-manifold, the product of the spectral function and the temperature is approximately independent of the critical exponent, the Fermi energy, and the temperature at all frequencies and near the Fermi surface when expressed in terms of suitably scaled momentum and frequency variables. This quasi-universal behavior leads to linear-in- T dc resistivity and Planckian dissipation over a large range of temperatures, and we also obtain T −3 scaling of the Hall conductivity at higher temperatures. The quasi-universal spectral function also fits well with photoemission spectroscopic data without varying the critical exponent with the doping. Combining with the results for optical conductivity, we construct a generalized version of Drude phenomenology for strange-metallic behavior, which satisfies non-trivial consistency tests. Finally, we discuss a possible dynamical mechanism for the fine-tuning of the ratio of the two couplings necessary to realize the strange metallic behavior in a typical state.
A refined semi-holographic non-Fermi liquid model, in which carrier electrons hybridize with operators of a holographic critical sector, has been proposed recently for strange metallic behavior. The model, consistently with effective theory approach, has two couplings whose ratio is related to the doping. We explain the origin of the linear-in-T resistivity and strange metallic behavior as a consequence of the emergence of a universal form of the spectral function which is independent of the model parameters when the ratio of the two couplings take optimal values determined only by the critical exponent. This universal form fits well with photoemission data of copper oxide samples for under/optimal/over-doping with a fixed exponent over a wide range of temperatures. We further obtain a refined Planckian dissipation scenario in which the scattering time τ=f⋅ℏ/(kBT)τ= f \cdot \hbar /(k_B T)τ=f⋅ℏ/(kB​T), with fff being O(1)\mathcal{O}(1)O(1) at strong coupling, but O(10)\mathcal{O}(10)O(10) at weak coupling.
The anomalous strange metal phase found in high-T c cuprates does not follow the conventional condensed-matter principles enshrined in the Fermi liquid and presents a great challenge for theory.Highly precise experimental determination of the electronic self-energy can provide a test bed for theoretical models of strange metals, and angle-resolved photoemission can provide this as a function of frequency, momentum, temperature and doping.Here we show that constant energy cuts through the nodal spectral function in (Pb,Bi) 2 Sr 2-x La x CuO 6+δ have a non-Lorentzian lineshape, consistent with a selfenergy that is k dependent.This provides a new test for aspiring theories.Here we show that the experimental data are captured remarkably well by a power law with a k-dependent scaling exponent smoothly evolving with doping, a description that emerges naturally from anti-de Sitter/conformal-field-theory based semi-holography.This puts a spotlight on holographic methods for the quantitative modelling of strongly interacting quantum materials like the cuprate strange metals.The rich temperature versus doping diagram of the cuprate high-T c superconductors presents a cornucopia of non-conformity 1 .The superconductivity does not follow BCS theory anywhere in the phase diagram 2,3 , and in their normal state these unusual metals display qualitatively different experimental behaviour compared to the Fermi liquid, with the linear-in-T resistivity and quadratic-in-T Hall angle being among the most strange.One intriguing possible explanation of strange metal phenomenology is that it is controlled by a strongly interacting quantum critical phase.If so, the question follows whether their properties can be
In metals, low-energy effective theories are characterized by a set of coupling functions. Among them, the angle-dependent Fermi momentum specifies the size and shape of Fermi surface. Since the Fermi momentum grows incessantly under the renormalization group flow, a metallic fixed point is defined only modulo a rescaling of Fermi momentum. In this paper, we discuss the physical consequences of this projective nature of fixed points for non-Fermi liquids with hot Fermi surfaces. The first is the absence of a unique dynamical critical exponent that dictates the relative scaling between energy and momentum. The second is mismatches between the scaling dimensions of couplings and their relevancy. Nonetheless, each projective fixed point is characterized by a few marginal and relevant coupling functions, and the notion of universality survives. We illustrate our findings by charting the space of projective fixed points and extracting their universal properties for the Ising-nematic quantum critical metal beyond the patch theory. To control the theory, we use the dimensional regularization scheme that tunes the co-dimension of Fermi surface. Near the upper critical dimension, two exactly marginal coupling functions span the space of stable projective fixed points: functions that specify the shape of the Fermi surface and the angle-dependent Fermi velocity. All other coupling functions, including the Landau functions and the universal pairing interaction, are fixed by those two marginal functions. With decreasing dimensions, the forward scattering remains irrelevant while the pairing interaction becomes relevant near two dimensions. In two dimensions, it is expected that the universal superconducting fluctuations lower the symmetry of the non-Fermi liquid realized above the superconducting transition temperatures from the loop U(1) group to a proper subgroup.
We study charge transport across the metal-insulator crossover in the half-filled two-dimensional Hubbard model, with particular emphasis on precision control. The dynamic current-current correlation function is obtained directly in the thermodynamic limit, and the optical conductivity is extracted using numerical analytic continuation. To achieve this, we develop a multiscale approach: the non-perturbative low-frequency behavior is computed using the unbiased diagrammatic Monte Carlo technique, while the high-frequency physics is captured via a self-consistent (semi-)analytic diagrammatic theory. We found that across a broad temperature range where the DC resistivity displays anomalous scaling, ∼Tα\sim T^α∼Tα with 0<α≲10<α\lesssim 10<α≲1, the Nernst-Einstein relation implies the diffusion constant with the characteristic ∼1/T\sim 1/\sqrt{T}∼1/T​ "strange metal" behavior. It was also revealed that the insulating regime is entered through a peculiar non-Fermi liquid state-which we call a Pseudogap Metal-characterized by insulating charge compressibility coexisting with metallic transport. Diagrammatically, the high-temperature incoherent transport is captured by the dressed polarization bubble, whereas near the metal-insulator crossover, the effective interaction vertex between opposite-spin particles is responsible for transferring the Drude weight to a high-frequency continuum.
Since the mid-eighties there has been an accumulation of metallic materials whose thermodynamic and transport properties differ significantly from those predicted by Fermi liquid theory. Examples of these so-called non-Fermi liquids include the strange metal phase of high transition temperature cuprates, and heavy fermion systems near a quantum phase transition. We report on a class of non-Fermi liquids discovered using gauge/gravity duality. The low energy behavior of these non-Fermi liquids is shown to be governed by a nontrivial infrared (IR) fixed point which exhibits nonanalytic scaling behavior only in the temporal direction. Within this class we find examples whose single-particle spectral function and transport behavior resemble those of strange metals. In particular, the contribution from the Fermi surface to the conductivity is inversely proportional to the temperature. In our treatment these properties can be understood as being controlled by the scaling dimension of the fermion operator in the emergent IR fixed point.
Using two approaches to strongly correlated systems, the extremely correlated Fermi liquid theory and the dynamical mean field theory, we compute the transverse transport coefficients, namely, the Hall constants RH{R}_{H}RH​ and Hall angles ${\ensuremath{\theta}}_{H}$, and the longitudinal and transverse optical response of the $U=\ensuremath{\infty}$ Hubbard model in the limit of infinite dimensions. We focus on two successive low-temperature regimes, the Gutzwiller-correlated Fermi liquid (GCFL) and the Gutzwiller-correlated strange metal (GCSM). We find that the Hall angle $cot{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{H}$ is proportional to T2{T}^{2}T2 in the GCFL regime, while upon warming into the GCSM regime it first passes through a downward bend and then continues as T2{T}^{2}T2. Equivalently, RH{R}_{H}RH​ is weakly temperature dependent in the GCFL regime, but becomes strongly temperature dependent in the GCSM regime. Drude peaks are found for both the longitudinal optical conductivity ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{xx}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ and the optical Hall angles $tan{\ensuremath{\theta}}_{H}(\ensuremath{\omega})$ below certain characteristic energy scales. By comparing the relaxation rates extracted from fitting to the Drude formula, we find that in the GCFL regime there is a single relaxation rate controlling both longitudinal and transverse transport, while in the GCSM regime two different relaxation rates emerge. We trace the origin of this behavior to the dynamical particle-hole asymmetry of the Dyson self-energy, arguably a generic feature of doped Mott insulators.