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arXiv:cond-mat/0303154 · Physical Review Letters

Soft Fermi Surfaces and Breakdown of Fermi-Liquid Behavior

Walter Metzner, D. Rohe, Sabine Andergassen

Published Aug 4, 2003• 217 citations
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Abstract

Electron-electron interactions can induce Fermi surface deformations which break the point-group symmetry of the lattice structure of the system. In the vicinity of such a "Pomeranchuk instability" the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations, and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We show that critical Fermi surface fluctuations near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions lead to large anisotropic decay rates for single-particle excitations, which destroy Fermi-liquid behavior over the whole surface except at the Brillouin zone diagonal.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.91.066402

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Electron-electron interactions can induce Fermi surface deformations which break the point-group symmetry of the lattice structure of the system. In the vicinity of such a "Pomeranchuk instability" the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations, and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We show that critical Fermi surface fluctuations near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions lead to large anisotropic decay rates for single-particle excitations, which destroy Fermi-liquid behavior over the whole surface except at the Brillouin zone diagonal.
Electron-electron interactions can induce Fermi surface deformations which break the point-group symmetry of the lattice structure of the system. In the vicinity of such a the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations, and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We show that critical Fermi surface fluctuations near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions lead to large anisotropic decay rates for single-particle excitations, which destroy Fermi liquid behavior over the whole surface except at the Brillouin zone diagonal.
Interactions in Fermi systems can generate a Pomeranchuk instability leading to orientational symmetry breaking, that is, nematic order. In a metallic system close to such an instability the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We analyze fluctuation effects in the quantum critical regime near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions. Density correlations with a d-wave form factor and the dynamical forward scattering interaction diverge near the instability. The singular forward scattering leads to large self-energy contributions, which destroy Fermi liquid behavior over the whole Fermi surface except at “cold spots” on the Brillouin zone diagonal. The decay rate of single-particle excitations, which is related to the width of the peaks in the spectral function, exceeds the excitation energy in the low-energy limit. The dispersion of the spectra flattens strongly near those portions of the Fermi surface which are remote from the zone diagonal. The decay rate for DC transport is linear in temperature except at the cold spots. We discuss the possible relevance of d-wave Fermi surface fluctuations for the “strange metal” behavior observed in the normal phase of cuprates.
Interactions in Fermi systems can induce a "Pomeranchuk instability" leading to orientational symmetry breaking, that is, nematic order. In a metallic system close to such an instability the Fermi surface is easily deformed by anisotropic perturbations, and exhibits enhanced collective fluctuations. We discuss electrons on a square lattice near a Pomeranchuk instability with d-wave symmetry. The strong response of such a system to a small orthorhombic perturbation can explain naturally the large in-plane anisotropy of electronic and magnetic properties observed in detwinned YBCO crystals. Fluctuations in a quantum critical regime near the instability provide a mechanism for non-Fermi liquid behavior. They lead to a singular forward scattering interaction, which destroys fermionic quasi-particles on the whole Fermi surface except at "cold spots" on the Brillouin zone diagonal. The decay rate for DC transport is linear in temperature except at the cold spots, where conventional Fermi liquid behavior survives. In clean systems this gives rise to a T 3/2 temperature dependence of the DC resistivity, as observed in some overdoped cuprates. In the presence of disorder, the resistivity is linear in T at low temperatures.
A metallic electron system near an orientational symmetry breaking Pomeranchuk instability is characterized by a ``soft'' Fermi surface with enhanced collective fluctuations. We analyze fluctuation effects in a two-dimensional electron system on a square lattice in the vicinity of a Pomeranchuk instability with ddd-wave symmetry, using a phenomenological model which includes interactions with a small momentum transfer only. We compute the dynamical density correlations with a ddd-wave form factor for small momenta and frequencies, the dynamical effective interaction due to a fluctuation exchange, and the electron self-energy. At the quantum critical point the density correlations and the dynamical forward scattering interaction diverge with a dynamical exponent z=3z=3z=3. The singular forward scattering leads to large self-energy corrections, which destroy Fermi liquid behavior over the whole Fermi surface except near the Brillouin zone diagonal. The decay rate of single-particle excitations, which is related to the width of the peaks in the spectral function, exceeds the excitation energy in the low-energy limit. The dispersion of maxima in the spectra flattens strongly near those portions of the Fermi surface which are remote from the zone diagonal. The contribution from classical fluctuations to the self-energy spoils $(\ensuremath{\omega}∕T)$ scaling in the quantum critical regime.
The deformation of the Fermi surface induced by Coulomb interactions is investigated in the $t\ensuremath{-}{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$-Hubbard model. The interplay of the local U and extended V interactions is analyzed. It is found that the interactions V enhance small anisotropies producing deformations of the Fermi surface that break the point group symmetry of the square lattice at the Van Hove filling. This Pomeranchuk instability competes with magnetic instabilities and is suppressed at a critical value U(V).U(V).U(V). The interaction V effectively renormalizes the ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ parameter to smaller values, which favors nesting. It also induces changes in the topology of the Fermi surface, which can go from holelike to electronlike. This may explain the results of recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments.
The effect of strong anisotropy on the Fermi line of a system of correlated electrons is studied in two space dimensions using renormalization group techniques. Inflection points change the scaling exponents of the couplings and enhance the instabilities of the system. They increase the critical dimension for non-Fermi-liquid behavior from 1 to 3/2. Assuming that, in the absence of nesting, the dominant instability is towards a superconducting ground state, simple rules to discern between d-wave and extended s-wave symmetry of the order parameter are given.