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Universality Classes Of Fermionic Vacua

Григорий Ефимович Воловик

Published Feb 26, 2009• 0 citations
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Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses effective theories of quantum fermionic liquids. In the low-energy limit, the type of the effective theory depends on the structure of the quasiparticle spectrum, which in turn is determined by topology in momentum space (p-space topology). The p-space topology distinguishes three main generic classes of the stable fermionic spectrum in the quantum vacuum of a 3+1 fermionic system: vacua with Fermi surfaces, vacua with Fermi points, and vacua with a fully gapped fermionic spectrum. Fermi surface is stable because it represents the topological object — the vortex in momentum space. As a result, Fermi liquids with Fermi surface share the properties of their simplest representative: weakly interacting Fermi gas. The low-energy physics of the interacting particles in a Fermi liquid is equivalent to the physics of a gas of quasiparticles moving in collective Bose fields produced by all other particles. Another topological object in p-space is the hedgehog, which is responsible for stability of Fermi points. Example of vacuum of the Fermi-point universality class is provided by 3He-A. Near the Fermi point the effective relativistic field theory emerges with emerging Weyl fermions, gauge fields, and gravity. The chapter discusses p-space and r-space topology, topological invariant for Fermi surface and Fermi points in terms of Green's function, Landau and non-Landau Fermi liquids, collective modes of the Fermi surface, volume of the Fermi surface as invariant of adiabatic deformations, collective modes of vacuum with Fermi points (electromagnetic and gravitational fields), and manifolds of zeros in p-space of higher dimensions.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199564842.003.0008

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Abstract This chapter discusses effective theories of quantum fermionic liquids. In the low-energy limit, the type of the effective theory depends on the structure of the quasiparticle spectrum, which in turn is determined by topology in momentum space (p-space topology). The p-space topology distinguishes three main generic classes of the stable fermionic spectrum in the quantum vacuum of a 3+1 fermionic system: vacua with Fermi surfaces, vacua with Fermi points, and vacua with a fully gapped fermionic spectrum. Fermi surface is stable because it represents the topological object — the vortex in momentum space. As a result, Fermi liquids with Fermi surface share the properties of their simplest representative: weakly interacting Fermi gas. The low-energy physics of the interacting particles in a Fermi liquid is equivalent to the physics of a gas of quasiparticles moving in collective Bose fields produced by all other particles. Another topological object in p-space is the hedgehog, which is responsible for stability of Fermi points. Example of vacuum of the Fermi-point universality class is provided by 3He-A. Near the Fermi point the effective relativistic field theory emerges with emerging Weyl fermions, gauge fields, and gravity. The chapter discusses p-space and r-space topology, topological invariant for Fermi surface and Fermi points in terms of Green's function, Landau and non-Landau Fermi liquids, collective modes of the Fermi surface, volume of the Fermi surface as invariant of adiabatic deformations, collective modes of vacuum with Fermi points (electromagnetic and gravitational fields), and manifolds of zeros in p-space of higher dimensions.
Abstract This chapter deals with the Fermi systems, where the low-energy effective theory involves both bosonic and fermionic fields. Above the phase transition to the superconducting or superfluid state, the overwhelming majority of systems consisting of fermionic particles (electrons in metals, neutrons in neutron stars, 3He atoms in 3He liquid, etc.) form a so-called Fermi liquid. Below transition new types of fermionic vacua emerge. This chapter discusses the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) theory for spin-triplet superfluids, which provide examples of different universality classes of fermionic vacua: fully gapped vacua, vacua with stable and marginal point nodes — Fermi points, and vacua with nodal lines — Fermi lines. It also discusses emergent ‘relativistic’ quasiparticles, fundamental constants and hierarchy of Planck energy scales in fermionic systems, problem of vacuum energy and cosmological term in bi-metric gravity, and mass generation for Standard Model fermions.
We discuss the momentum-space topology of 3+1 and 2+1 strongly correlated fermionic systems. For the 3+1 systems the important universality class is determined by the topologically stable Fermi points in momentum space. In the extreme limit of low energy the condensed matter system of this universality class acquires all the symmetries, which we know today in high energy physics: Lorentz invariance, gauge invariance, general covariance, etc. The chiral fermions as well as gauge bosons and gravity field arise as fermionic and bosonic collective modes of the system. This introduces the conceptual similarity between such condensed matter and the quantum vacuum of Standard Model, which also contains the Fermi point. For the 2+1 fermionic systems the momentum space topology gives rise to the quantization of different physical parameters, such as Hall conducivity and spin-Hall conductivity, and to quantum phase transitions with the abrupt change of the momentum-space topology. The combined p-space and r-space topology determines in particular the topology of the energy spectrum of fermion zero modes living within the topological defects; fermionic charges of the topologically nontrivial extended objects; axial anomaly; etc.
The Fermi liquid is perhaps the most familiar quantum many-body state of solid state physics; we met it briefly in Section 16.2.2. It is the generic state of fermions at nonzero density, and is found in all metals. Its basic characteristics can already be understood in a simple free fermion picture. Noninteracting fermions occupy the lowest energy single-particle states, consistent with the exclusion principle. This leads to the fundamental concept of the Fermi surface: a surface in momentum space separating the occupied and empty single fermion states. The lowest energy excitations then consist of quasiparticle excitations which are particle-like outside the Fermi surface, and hole-like inside the Fermi surface. Landau's Fermi liquid theory is a careful justification for the stability of this simple picture in the presence of interactions between fermions. Just as we found in Chapters 5 and 7 for the quantum Ising and rotor models, interaction corrections modify the wavefunction of the quasiparticle and so introduce a quasiparticle residue A ; however, they do not destabilize the integrity of the quasiparticle, as we review in Section 18.1. The purpose of this chapter is to describe two paradigms of symmetry breaking quantum transitions in Fermi liquids. In the first class, studied in Section 18.2, the broken symmetry is related to the point-group symmetry of the crystal, while translational symmetry is preserved; consequently, the order parameter resides at zero wavevector. In the second class, studied in Section 18.3, the order parameter is at a finite wavevector, and so translational symmetry is also broken.
Many quantum condensed-matter systems, and probably the quantum vacuum of our Universe, are strongly correlated and strongly interacting fermionic systems, which cannot be treated perturbatively. However, physics which emerges in the low-energy does not depend on the complicated details of the system and is relatively simple. It is determined by the nodes in the fermionic spectrum, which are protected by topology in momentum space (in some cases, in combination with the vacuum symmetry). Here we illustrate this universality on some examples of quantum phase transitions, which can occur between the vacua with the same symmetry but with diferent topology in momentum space. The quantum phase transitions between the fully gapped states with different momentum-space topology are also discussed.
We study the low-energy effective theory for a non-Fermi-liquid state in 2+12+12+1 dimensions, where a transverse U(1) gauge field is coupled with a patch of Fermi surface with NNN flavors of fermion in the large NNN limit. In the low-energy limit, quantum corrections are classified according to the genus of the two-dimensional surface on which Feynman diagrams can be drawn without a crossing in a double line representation and all planar diagrams are important in the leading order. The emerging theory has the similar structure to the four-dimensional SU(N) gauge theory in the large NNN limit. Because of strong quantum fluctuations caused by the abundant low-energy excitations near the Fermi surface, low-energy fermions remain strongly coupled even in the large NNN limit. As a result, there are infinitely many quantum corrections that contribute to the leading frequency dependence of the Green's function of fermion on the Fermi surface. On the contrary, the boson self-energy is not modified beyond the one-loop level and the theory is stable in the large NNN limit. The nonperturbative nature of the theory also shows up in correlation functions of gauge-invariant operators.
Opportunities for topological phase transitions in strongly correlated Fermi systems near a quantum critical point are explored as an alternative to collective scenarios for experimentally observed departures from standard Fermi-liquid behavior. Attention is focused on a quantum critical point at which the effective mass is divergent due to vanishing of the quasiparticle group velocity at the Fermi surface. Working within the original Landau quasiparticle theory, it is demonstrated that the quasiparticle picture can remain meaningful beyond the quantum critical point through rearrangements of the unstable normal Fermi surface and quasiparticle spectrum. Two possibilities emerge at zero temperature, depending on whether the quasiparticle interaction is regular or singular at zero momentum transfer. In the regular case, one type of topological phase transformation leads to a state with a multiconnected Fermi surface. In the singular case, another type of topological phase transition leads to an exceptional state containing a fermion condensate – the Fermi surface swells into a volume in momentum space, within which partial occupation prevails and quasiparticle energies are pinned to the chemical potential. As the temperature increases from zero to a characteristic value Tm, a crossover can occur from the state with multiple Fermi surfaces to that containing a fermion condensate.