The discovery of many strongly correlated metallic phases has inspired different routes to generalize or go beyond the celebrated Landau Fermi liquid theory. To this end, from universal consideration of symmetries and anomalies, Else, Thorngren, and Senthil (ETS) have introduced a class of theories called ersatz Fermi liquids which possess a Fermi surface and satisfy a generalized Luttinger's theorem. In this work, we view all such fermion liquids obeying the Luttinger theorem as incompressible quantum Hall liquids in higher-dimensional phase space and use it as the starting point to derive their effective low-energy field theory. The noncommutativity of phase space motivates us to use the Seiberg-Witten map to derive the field theory in an ordinary (commutative) space and naturally leads to terms that correspond to the correct topological Chern-Simons action postulated by ETS in one, two, and three dimensions. Additionally, our approach also reproduces all the nontopological terms that characterize important contributions to the response, including the semiclassical equations of motion. Finally, our derivations of Chern-Simons terms from the Seiberg-Witten map also verify a longstanding conjecture in noncommutative field theory.
The discovery of many strongly correlated metallic phases has inspired different routes to generalize or go beyond the celebrated Landau Fermi liquid theory. To this end, from universal consideration of symmetries and anomalies, Else, Thorngren, and Senthil (ETS) have introduced a class of theories called ersatz Fermi liquids which possess a Fermi surface and satisfy a generalized Luttinger's theorem. In this work, we view all such fermion liquids obeying the Luttinger theorem as incompressible quantum Hall liquids in higher-dimensional phase space and use it as the starting point to derive their effective low-energy field theory. The noncommutativity of phase space motivates us to use the Seiberg-Witten map to derive the field theory in an ordinary (commutative) space and naturally leads to terms that correspond to the correct topological Chern-Simons action postulated by ETS in one, two, and three dimensions. Additionally, our approach also reproduces all the nontopological terms that characterize important contributions to the response, including the semiclassical equations of motion. Finally, our derivations of Chern-Simons terms from the Seiberg-Witten map also verify a longstanding conjecture in noncommutative field theory.
A system with charge conservation and lattice translation symmetry has a well-defined filling ν, which is a real number representing the average charge per unit cell.We show that if ν is fractional (i.e., not an integer), this imposes very strong constraints on the low-energy theory of the system and give a framework to understand such constraints in great generality, vastly generalizing the Luttinger and Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorems.The most powerful constraint comes about if ν is continuously tunable (i.e., the system is charge compressible), in which case, we show that the low-energy theory must have a very large emergent symmetry group-larger than any compact Lie group.An example is the Fermi surface of a Fermi liquid, where the charge at every point on the Fermi surface is conserved.We expect that in many, if not all, cases, even exotic non-Fermi liquids will have the same emergent symmetry group as a Fermi liquid, even though they could have very different dynamics.We call a system with this property an ersatz Fermi liquid.We show that ersatz Fermi liquids share a number of properties in common with Fermi liquids, including Luttinger's theorem (which is thus extended to a large class of non-Fermi liquids) and periodic "quantum oscillations" in the response to an applied magnetic field.We also establish versions of Luttinger's theorem for the composite Fermi liquid in quantum Hall systems and for spinon Fermi surfaces in Mott insulators.Our work makes a connection between filling constraints and the theory of symmetry-protected topological phases, in particular through the concept of "'t Hooft anomalies."
A system with charge conservation and lattice translation symmetry has a well-defined filling ν, which is a real number representing the average charge per unit cell. We show that if ν is fractional (i.e., not an integer), this imposes very strong constraints on the low-energy theory of the system and give a framework to understand such constraints in great generality, vastly generalizing the Luttinger and Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorems. The most powerful constraint comes about if ν is continuously tunable (i.e., the system is charge compressible), in which case, we show that the low-energy theory must have a very large emergent symmetry group—larger than any compact Lie group. An example is the Fermi surface of a Fermi liquid, where the charge at every point on the Fermi surface is conserved. We expect that in many, if not all, cases, even exotic non-Fermi liquids will have the same emergent symmetry group as a Fermi liquid, even though they could have very different dynamics. We call a system with this property an ersatz Fermi liquid. We show that ersatz Fermi liquids share a number of properties in common with Fermi liquids, including Luttinger's theorem (which is thus extended to a large class of non-Fermi liquids) and periodic "quantum oscillations" in the response to an applied magnetic field. We also establish versions of Luttinger's theorem for the composite Fermi liquid in quantum Hall systems and for spinon Fermi surfaces in Mott insulators. Our work makes a connection between filling constraints and the theory of symmetry-protected topological phases, in particular through the concept of "'t Hooft anomalies."Received 17 August 2020Revised 22 December 2020Accepted 21 January 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.021005Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasAnomaliesFermi surfacePhysical SystemsStrongly correlated systemsTechniquesFermi liquid theoryNon-Fermi-liquid theorySymmetries in condensed matterCondensed Matter & Materials Physics
"This thesis is devoted to the investigation of the quantum liquid crystal phases in strongly correlated electronic systems. Such phases are characterized by their partially broken spatial symmetries and are observed in various strongly correlated systems as being summarized in Chapter 1. In quantum liquid crystal phases formed by fermions, behaviors beyond Landau's theory of the Fermi liquids appear naturally, signed by the absence of well-defined quasiparticle excitations. Although quantum liquid crystal phases often involve strong-coupling physics, the associated symmetry analysis can often be carried out also in a relatively weak coupling regime and this is the main approach taken in this thesis. Two different quantum liquid crystal phases, the nematic state and the smectic state, are studied in Chapters 2 and 3 respectively, by investigating various instabilities of a Landau Fermi liquid. A nematic phase is a state that breaks the rotational symmetry spontaneously but preserves the translational symmetries. It can be reached by the Pomeranchuk instability of a Landau Fermi liquid. The Pomeranchuk instability in the charge (spin-singlet) sector of a Fermi liquid was studied previously within a random phase approximation and by a high-dimensional bosonization method. In Chapter 2, we concentrate on the Pomeranchuk instability in the spin-triplet sector, and two different classes of ordered phases are discovered, dubbed the a and ,8-phases by analogy to the superfluid 3He-A and B-phases. The Fermi surfaces in the a-phases exhibit spontaneous anisotropic distortions, while in the ,8-phases the Fermi surfaces remain circular or spherical with topologically non-trivial spin configurations in momentum space. The behaviors of the low energy bosonic excitations are studied both in the order phases (a and .B) and at the quantum critical point separating the ordered phases from the Fermi liquid phase. In Chapter 3, the smectic phase and the quantum phase transition between a metallic nematic state and a metallic smectic phase are investigated using the random phase approximation, by considering the formation of a unidirectional charge density wave in an electronic nematic state. The associated quantum critical point is investigated within the Hertz-Millis approach. Non-Fermi liquid behaviors are discovered both at the quantum phase transition and in the smectic ordered phase. The theory we studied here provides a simple description for the so-called ""fluctuating stripe"" phase in cuprates. Similar to its classical counterpart, the phase transition between the nematic and smectic phases are described by a ""gauge-like"" theory as required by the rotational invariance in close analogy with the McMillan-deGennes theory of the smectic-nematic phase transition in classical liquid crystals. However, unlike the classical McMillandeGennes theory, in which the coupling between the ""gauge-like"" nematic fluctuations and the ""matter-like"" smectic fields is relevant, in the sense of renormalization group, this coupling is irrelevant at the quantum phase transition. This property enables the study of low energy fluctuations and the fate of fermions near this quantum critical point. In Chapter 4, quantum liquid crystal phases with a broken time-reversal symmetry are investigated. We start by studying the general scenario of timereversal symmetry breaking phases in the absence of magnetic ordering in systems with long-lived low-energy fermionic quasiparticle excitations in two dimensions. Using a Berry phase approach, we classified possible time-reversal symmetry breaking phases by the accompanying spatial symmetry breaking patterns. Two of the simplest situations are referred to as the type I state, which breaks simultaneously the space-inversion symmetry and the time-reversal symmetry, and the type I I state, in which the chiral symmetry is broken in addition to the breaking of the time-reversal symmetry. Although the starting point is general and has little relation with the quantum liquid crystal phases, both type I and type II states defined above are realized by (generalized) Pomeranchuk instabilities. In fact , a type I I state is usually a nematic state which also breaks the time-reversal symmetry. Interestingly, the type II states also shows spontaneously generated Hall effect even in the absence of a magnetic field, which is known as the spontaneous anomalous Hall effect. In Chapter 5, we investigate the stability of a quadratic band-crossing point in two-dimensional fermionic systems that provide an explicit example, within well controlled approximations, for the nematic ordering discussed in Chapter 2 and spontaneous anomalous Hall effect discussed in Chapter 4. At the non-interacting level, we show that a quadratic band-crossing point exists and is topologically stable when the Berry flux of this crossing point is ±27r and the point symmetry group at this point has either fourfold or sixfold rotational symmetries. Strikingly, we find that this would-be topologically stable quadratic band-crossing is marginally unstable against short-range interactions: a quadratic band-crossing point in two dimensions is unstable against shortrange repulsion, no matter how weak! Four ordered phases are found in this system, the quantum anomalous Hall state, the quantum spin Hall phase, the nematic phase, and the nematic-spin-nematic phase."
The Landau theory of phase and phase transition, which describes the state of matter by the spontaneous symmetry breaking, and the Fermi liquid theory of interacting Fermi systems are the two corner stones of contemporary condensed matter physics. They act as our starting points to understand the structure, excitations and phase transitions of any condensed matter system. According to such a Landau paradigm, an interacting Fermi system will behave just as non-interacting Fermi gas system at sufficient low energy, if the interaction is not strong enough to induce a symmetry breaking phase transition in the system. In such a case, the perturbation expansion in the interaction strength is assumed to converge and the low energy excitation can be connected to that of a Fermi gas system adiabatically. In strongly correlated electron systems, such as the high temperature superconductors and quantum antiferromagnets, a pertubative picture on the interaction effect usually fails. The correlation effect between the electrons can induce new forms of order that are beyond the Landau symmetry breaking paradigm. Non-Fermi liquid behavior can emerge in the fully symmetric correlated phases. The Mott insulating phase and the quantum spin liquid phase are the most prominent example of such exotic state of matter. After about three decades of intensive studies, people find that the quantum non-locality effect is at the heart of such new forms of order. The quantum non-locality effect manifests itself in the emergence of gauge degree of freedom in the low energy physics of such strongly correlated system. Such emergent gauge filed is not only important for the characterization and classification of the ground state structure, but is also directly responsible for the non-Fermi liquid behavior of the system. The Landau paradigm should be extended to accommodate such new forms of order and the related new form of excitations and new universal class of phase transitions. Such an extension will elevate our understanding of the structure of matter to the level of quantum wave function. Unlike the conventional symmetry breaking order, which is characterized by the correlation functions between local physical observables, the new form of orders, which are commonly called quantum order (with the topological order as one of its typical example), can be better characterized by the entanglement property in the quantum wave function. From a mathematical point of view, the new form of order is closely related to the projective representation theory of the symmetry group, while the conventional symmetry breaking order is well described by the linear representation theory of the symmetry group.
The effective field theory of the fractional quantum Hall edge is reformulated from microscopic dynamics. Noncommutative Chern-Simons theory is a microscopic description for the quantum Hall fluid. We use it for reference. Considering relabeling symmetry of the electrons and incompressibility of the fluid, we obtain a constraint and derive a chiral Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory containing interaction terms. We calculate one-loop corrections to the phonon and electron propagators and get a new tunneling exponent. It agrees with experiments.
Understanding non-Fermi liquids in dimensions higher than one remains one of the most formidable challenges in modern condensed matter physics. These systems, characterized by an abundance of gapless degrees of freedom and the absence of well-defined quasiparticles, defy conventional analytical frameworks. Inspired by recent work [Delacretaz et al. Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 033131 (2022)], we present a procedure for bosonizing Fermi surfaces that does not rely on the existence of sharp excitation and is thus directly applicable to non-Fermi liquids. Our method involves parametrizing the generalized fermionic distribution function through a bosonic field that describes frequency-dependent local variations of the chemical potential in momentum space. We propose an effective action that produces the collisionless quantum Boltzmann equation as its equation of motion and can be used for any dimension and Fermi surface of interest. Even at the quadratic order, this action reproduces nontrivial results obtainable only through involved analysis with alternative means. By offering an alternative method directly applicable to studying the low-energy physics of Fermi and non-Fermi liquids, our work potentially stands as an important building block in advancing the comprehension of strange metals and associated phenomena.