We review the theory of interacting Fermi systems whose low-energy physics is dominated by forward scattering, that is scattering processes generated by effective interactions with small momentum transfers. These systems include Fermi liquids as well as several important non-Fermi-liquid phases: one-dimensional Luttinger liquids, systems with long-range interactions, and fermions coupled to a gauge field. We report results for the critical dimensions separating different 'universality classes' and discuss the behaviour of physical quantities such as the momentum distribution function, the single-particle propagator and low-energy response functions in each class. The renormalization group for Fermi systems will be reviewed and applied as a link between microscopic models and effective lowenergy theories. Particular attention is paid to conservation laws, which constrain any effective low-energy theory of interacting Fermi systems. In scattering processes with small momentum transfers the velocity of each scattering particle is (almost) conserved. This asymptotic conservation law leads to non-trivial cancellations of Feynman diagrams and other simplifications, making thus possible a non-perturbative treatment of forward scattering via Ward identities or bosonization techniques.
We review the theory of interacting Fermi systems whose low-energy physics is dominated by forward scattering, that is scattering processes generated by effective interactions with small momentum transfers. These systems include Fermi liquids as well as several important non-Fermi-liquid phases: one-dimensional Luttinger liquids, systems with long-range interactions, and fermions coupled to a gauge field. We report results for the critical dimensions separating different 'universality classes' and discuss the behaviour of physical quantities such as the momentum distribution function, the single-particle propagator and low-energy response functions in each class. The renormalization group for Fermi systems will be reviewed and applied as a link between microscopic models and effective lowenergy theories. Particular attention is paid to conservation laws, which constrain any effective low-energy theory of interacting Fermi systems. In scattering processes with small momentum transfers the velocity of each scattering particle is (almost) conserved. This asymptotic conservation law leads to non-trivial cancellations of Feynman diagrams and other simplifications, making thus possible a non-perturbative treatment of forward scattering via Ward identities or bosonization techniques.
We review the progress in the theory of one-dimensional (ID) Fermi liquids which has occurred over the past decade. The usual Fermi liquid theory, based on a quasi-particle picture, breaks down in one dimension because of the Peierls divergence in the particle-hole bubble, producing anomalous dimensions of operators, and because of charge-spin separation. Both are related to the importance of scattering processes transferring finite momentum. A description of the low-energy properties of gapless 1D quantum systems can be based on the exactly solvable Luttinger model which incorporates these features, and whose correlation functions can be calculated. Special properties of the eigenvalue spectrum, parameterized by one renormalized velocity and one effective coupling constant per degree of freedom, fully describe the physics of this model. Other gapless 1D models share these properties in a low-energy subspace. The concept of a "Luttinger liquid" implies that their low-energy properties are described by an effective Luttinger model, and constitutes the universality class of these quantum systems. Once the mapping on the Luttinger model is achieved, one has an asymptotically exact solution of the 1D many-body problem. Lattice models identified as Luttinger liquids include the 1D Hubbard model off half-filling, and variants such as the t-J- or the extended Hubbard model. In addition, 1D electron-phonon systems or metals with impurities can be Luttinger liquids, as well as the edge states in the quantum Hall effect.
The low-energy properties of interacting Fermi systems are highly constrained by conservation laws. They generally simplify the structure of the underlying renormalization group by reducing the number of independent renormalization constants. In one dimension, all properties of normal metallic fixed points are uniquely determined by separate charge and spin conservation for states near the left and right Fermi points, respectively. We construct the general Luttinger-liquid theory of one-dimensional (1D) metals directly from these conservation laws. Luttinger-liquid parameters emerge naturally from the velocities associated with the conserved currents at the Luttinger-liquid fixed point. Instead of bosonization, one may thus use techniques familiar from Fermi-liquid theory, i.e., Feynman diagrams, equations of motion, and Ward identities. The choice of a technique comprising both Fermi- and Luttinger-liquid theory makes the similarities and differences of both theories particularly transparent, and sets the stage for constructing non-Fermi-liquid metallic fixed points in d>1. Several generic properties and asymptotic conservation laws of 2D non-Fermi-liquid metals are discussed.
Landau Fermi liquid theory is a fixed-point theory of metals that includes the forward-scattering amplitudes as exact marginal couplings. However, the fixed-point theory that only includes the strict forward scatterings is nonlocal in real space. In this paper, we revisit the Fermi liquid theory for charge-neutral fermions using the field-theoretic functional renormalization group formalism and show how the scale-invariant fixed point emerges as a local theory, which includes not only the forward scatterings but also nonforward scatterings with small but nonzero momentum transfers. In the low-energy limit, the near-forward scattering and pairing interactions take scale-invariant forms if the momentum transfer and the center-of-mass momentum of Cooper pairs, respectively, are comparable to the energy. The coupling functions fully capture the universal low-energy dynamics of the collective modes and instabilities of Fermi liquids. A runaway flow of the coupling function in the particle-hole channel beyond a critical interaction suggests an instability toward an ordered phase with a wave vector that depends on the interaction strength. At the critical interaction, the instability corresponds to the uniform Pomeranchuk or Stoner instability, but the momentum of the leading instability becomes nonzero for stronger attractive interaction. In the particle-particle channel, the coupling function reveals the dynamics of the unstable mode associated with the BCS instability. When an unstable normal metal evolves into the superconducting state, there exists a period in which a superconducting state with spatially nonuniform phase appears due to the presence of unstable Cooperon modes with nonzero momenta.
We consider interacting one-dimensional, spinless Fermi gases, whose low-energy properties are described by Luttinger liquid theory. We perform a systematic, in-depth analysis of the relation between the macroscopic, phenomenological parameters of Luttinger liquid effective field theory, and the microscopic interactions of the Fermi gas. In particular, we begin by explaining how to model effective interactions in one dimension, which we then apply to the main forward scattering channel -- the interbranch collisions -- common to these systems. We renormalise the corresponding interbranch phenomenological constants in favour of scattering phase shifts. Interestingly, our renormalisation procedure shows (i) how Luttinger's model arises in a completely natural way -- and not as a convenient approximation -- from Tomonaga's model, and (ii) the reasons behind the interbranch coupling constant remaining unrenormalised in Luttinger's model. We then consider the so-called intrabranch processes, whose phenomenological coupling constant is known to be fixed by charge conservation, but whose microscopic origin is not well understood. We show that, contrary to general belief and common sense, the intrabranch interactions appearing in Luttinger liquid theory do not correspond to an intrabranch scattering channel, nor an energy shift due to intrabranch interactions, in the microscopic theory. Instead, they are due to interbranch processes. We finally apply our results to a particular example of an exactly solvable model, namely the fermionic dual to the Lieb-Liniger model in the Tonks-Girardeau and super-Tonks-Girardeau regimes.
In this work, we consider N-fold degenerate D-dimensional electron gas with spherical Fermi surface and arbitrary forward-scattering density-density interaction transferring small momentum compared to the Fermi momentum kF. The dimensional reduction that is mathematically equivalent to the Haldane patch construction and similar multidimensional bosonization techniques, provides a natural map of two-point D-dimensional correlation functions (fermion Green function, susceptibilities etc.) onto effective one-dimensional (1D) correlators with the same diagrammatic structure, which can be evaluated exactly within a 1D bosonizable (Gaussian) theory. We then apply this formalism to evaluate the fermion Green function, pair and charge/flavor susceptibilities, as well as the composite correlation functions for the case of a finite-range interaction, where the interaction range Rs≫1/kF is large compared to the Fermi wavelength. First, we find that the single-particle spectral function remains Fermi-liquid-like which is fully consistent with the previous research. In contrast to the single-particle sector, the many-body channels are efficiently dressed by finite-range interactions, and this dressing is fully equivalent to the one-loop renormalization group (RG), which is also in line with previous multidimensional bosonization results. Within the forward-scattering model, stable long-range order is not possible, and relevant susceptibilities demonstrate singular power-law scaling with temperature T at T→0. The rest of the abstract is in the PDF.
We consider a specific generalization to spatial dimensions d greater than one of a formalism, based upon conservation laws and the associated ward identities, that exactly solves the one-dimensional Luttinger model, and expose its inadequacies for d > 1. We conclude that findings arrived at through application of this generalized formalism concerning systems of fermions with strong forward scattering, in particular that d = 1 would be the cross-over dimension from Luttinger- to Fermi-liquid state, are open to question.