Recent experiments on quantum criticality in the Ge-substituted heavy-electron material YbRh2Si2 under magnetic field have revealed a possible non-Fermi liquid (NFL) strange metal (SM) state over a finite range of fields at low temperatures, which still remains a puzzle. In the SM region, the zero-field antiferromagnetism is suppressed. Above a critical field, it gives way to a heavy Fermi liquid with Kondo correlation. The T (temperature)-linear resistivity and the T-logarithmic followed by a power-law singularity in the specific heat coefficient at low T, salient NFL behaviours in the SM region, are un-explained. We offer a mechanism to address these open issues theoretically based on the competition between a quasi-2d fluctuating short-ranged resonant- valence-bonds (RVB) spin-liquid and the Kondo correlation near criticality. Via a field-theoretical renormalization group analysis on an effective field theory beyond a large-N approach to an anti- ferromagnetic Kondo-Heisenberg model, we identify the critical point, and explain remarkably well both the crossovers and the SM behaviour.
The mechanism of strange metal (SM) with unconventional charge transport near magnetic phase transitions has become an outstanding open problem in correlated electron systems. Recently, an exotic quantum critical SM phase was observed in paramagnetic frustrated heavy-fermion materials near Kondo breakdown. We establish a controlled theoretical framework to this issue via a dynamical large-N fermionic multichannel approach to the two-dimensional Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model, where KB transition separates a heavy-Fermi liquid from fermionic spin-liquid state. With Kondo fluctuations being full…
The strange metal phases found to develop in a wide range of materials near a quantum critical point (QCP), have posed a long-standing mystery. The frequent association of strange metals with unconventional superconductivity and antiferromagnetic QCPs has led to a belief that they are highly entangled quantum states. Ferromagnets, by contrast are regarded as an unlikely setting for strange metals, for they are weakly entangled and their QCPs are often interrupted by competing phases or first order phase transitions. Here, we provide compelling evidence that the stoichiometric heavy fermion fer…
Strange metal behavior appears across a variety of condensed matter settings and beyond, and achieving a universal understanding is an exciting prospect. The beyond-Landau quantum criticality of Kondo destruction has had considerable success in describing the behavior of strange metal heavy fermion compounds, and there is some evidence that the associated partial localization-delocalization nature can be generalized to diverse materials classes. Other potential overarching principles at play are also being explored. An intriguing proposal is that Planckian scattering, with a rate of $k_{\rm B}…
Anomalous transport behavior -- both longitudinal and Hall -- is the defining characteristic of the strange-metal state of High-Tc cuprates. The temperature, frequency, and magnetic field dependence of the resistivity is understood within strange metal phenomenology as resulting from energy-scale competition to set the inelastic relaxation rate. The anomalously strong temperature dependence of the Hall coefficient, however, is at odds with this phenomenology. Here we report measurements of the Hall resistivity in the strange metal state of cuprates over a broad range of magnetic fields and tem…
We propose that the non-equilibrium current measured in the $a-b$ plane of an underdoped cuprate (in either the strange metal or pseudogap regime) in contact with either an overdoped cuprate or a standard Fermi liquid can be used diagnose how different the pseudogap and strange metals are from a Fermi liquid. Naively one expects the strange metal to be more different from a Fermi liquid than is the pseudogap. We compute the expected non-equilibrium transport signal with the three Green functions that are available in the literature: 1) marginal Fermi liquid theory, 2) the phenomenological ansa…
We study a dual flavor fermion model where each of the flavors form a Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) system with arbitrary and possibly distinct $q$-body interactions. The crucial new element is an arbitrary all-to-all $r$-body interaction between the two flavors. At high temperatures the model shows a strange metal phase where both flavors are gapless, similar to the usual single flavor SYK model. Upon reducing temperature, the coupled system undergoes phase transitions to previously unseen phases - first, a strange half metal (SHM) phase where one flavor remains a strange metal while the other is g…
Strange metallicity encompasses high magnetic field-induced superconductivity in UTe2
Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics（查理大学数学物理学院）；Hochfeld-Magnetlabor Dresden (HLD-EMFL), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf（德累斯顿强磁场实验室（HLD-EMFL），德累斯顿罗森多夫亥姆霍兹中心）；Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学卡文迪许实验室）
A fundamental challenge to our current understanding of metals is the frequent observation of qualitative departures from Fermi liquid behavior. The standard view attributes such non-Fermi liquid phenomena to the scattering of electrons off quantum critical fluctuations of an underlying order parameter. While the possibility of non-Fermi liquid behavior isolated from the border of magnetism has long been speculated, no experimental confirmation has been made. Here we report on the observation of a strange metal region in the absence of a magnetic instability in an ultrapure single crystal. In …
We introduce a Cellular Dynamical Cluster Approximation (CDCA) to study the nature of the Mott insulator-metal transition in the extended Hubbard model on a square lattice. At strong coupling, a d-wave Mott insulator is obtained. Hole doping drives a first order Mott transition to a non-Fermi (nFL) liquid metal. Remarkably, this nFL is caused by an Anderson orthogonality catastrophe at low energies due to the non-trivial competition between strong, non-local interactions and hopping. This constitutes the first explicit realisation of Anderson's Luttinger liquid idea in two dimensions. Many exp…
A variety of low-temperature, normal-state properties of optimally and overdoped cuprate superconductors, including the DC and optical transport responses, are sufficiently anomalous that they might seem to be inconsistent with any quasiparticle description. However, we show by explicit construction that the most salient phenomena can be accounted for in a system with localized "strange scatterers" embedded into a Fermi liquid with a conventional quasiparticle description. Such scatterers could originate from "two-level systems" associated with an electronic glassy state with short-range charg…
While a specific kind of strange metal is increasingly found to be the "normal" states in a wide variety of unconventional superconductors, its microscopic origin is presently a hotly debated enigma. Using dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) based on hybridization expansion of continuous-time quantum Monte-Carlo (CTQMC) solver for an extended two-band Hubbard model (2BHM), we investigate the conditions underlying the emergence of such a metal. Specifically, we tie strange metallicity to an orbital-selective Mottness in 2BHM or momentum-selective Mott phase (OSMP) in 2D Hubbard models inspired b…
The puzzling "strange metal" phase of the high Tc cuprate phase diagram reveals itself as closer to a Fermi liquid than previously supposed: it is a consequence of Gutzwiller projection and does not necessarily require exotica such as an RVB or mysterious quantum critical points. There is a Fermi liquid-like excitation spectrum but the excitations are asymmetric between electrons and holes, show anomalous forward scattering and have Z equal to 0. We explain the power law dependence of conductivity on frequency and predict anomalies in the tunneling and photoemission spectra.
Strange metal behavior refers to a linear temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity at temperatures below the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit. It is seen in numerous strongly correlated electron systems, from the heavy fermion compounds, via transition metal oxides and iron pnictides, to magic angle twisted bi-layer graphene, frequently in connection with unconventional or "high temperature" superconductivity. To achieve a unified understanding of these phenomena across the different materials classes is a central open problem in condensed matter physics. Tests whether the linear-in-temperat…
Metallic states coined strange metal (SM), with robust linear-$T$ resistivity, have been widely observed in many quantum materials under strong electron correlation, ranging from high-$T_{c}$ cuprate superconductor, organic superconductor to twisted multilayer graphene and MoTe$_{2}$/WSe$_{2}$ superlattice. Despite decades of intensive studies, the mystery of strange metal still defies any sensible theoretical explanation and has been the key puzzle in modern condensed matter physics. Here, we solve a doped Mott insulator model, which unambiguously exhibits SM phenomena accompanied with quantu…
We show that the numerically exact bold-line diagrammatic theory for the $2d$ Hubbard model exhibits a non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) strange metal state, which is connected to the SYK NFL in the strong-interaction limit. The solution for the doped system features the expected phenomenology with the NFL near half-filling at strong couplings and in a wide temperature range enclosed by the atomic state at high temperatures and a Fermi liquid at low temperatures. We demonstrate, however, that this behavior in the weakly doped regime is due to the unphysical branch of the Luttinger-Ward functional. On the…
Critical fluctuations and conserved dynamics in a strange ferromagnetic metal
Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；Hubei Normal University（湖北师范大学）；University of Cincinnati（辛辛那提大学）；Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids（马克斯·普朗克固体化学物理研究所）
Transport in the emergent Bose liquid: Bad metal, strange metal, and weak insulator, all in one system
Tsung-Dao Lee Institute & School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交大李政道理论与计算中心及物理与天文学院）；Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education)（人工结构与量子控制教育部重点实验室）；Shanghai Branch, Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室上海分部）
A normal metal exhibits a valence plasmon, which is a sound wave in its conduction electron density. The mysterious strange metal is characterized by non-Boltzmann transport and violates most fundamental Fermi liquid scaling laws. A fundamental question is: Do strange metals have plasmons? Using momentum-resolved inelastic electron scattering (M-EELS) we recently showed that, rather than a plasmon, optimally-doped Bi$_{2.1}$Sr$_{1.9}$Ca$_{1.0}$Cu$_{2.0}$O$_{8+x}$ (Bi-2212) exhibits a featureless, temperature-independent continuum with a power-law form over most energy and momentum scales [M. M…
Photo-doping of Mott insulators or correlated metals can create an unusual metallic state which simultaneously hosts hole-like and electron-like particles. We study the dynamics of this state up to long times, as it passes its kinetic energy to the environment. When the system cools down, it crosses over from a bad metal into a resilient quasiparticle regime, in which quasiparticle bands are formed with separate Fermi levels for electrons and holes, but quasiparticles do not yet satisfy the Fermi liquid paradigm. Subsequently, the transfer of energy to the environment slows down significantly,…
Anomalous metallic properties are often observed in the proximity of quantum critical points (QCPs), with violation of the Fermi Liquid paradigm. We propose a scenario where, due to the presence of a nearby QCP, dynamical fluctuations of the order parameter with finite correlation length mediate a nearly isotropic scattering among the quasiparticles over the entire Fermi surface. This scattering produces an anomalous metallic behavior, which is extended to the lowest temperatures by an increase of the damping of the fluctuations. We phenomenologically identify one single parameter ruling this …
One of the key factors that determine the fates of quantum many-body systems in the zero temperature limit is the competition between kinetic energy that delocalizes particles in space and interaction that promotes localization. While one dominates over the other in conventional metals and insulators, exotic states can arise at quantum critical points where none of them clearly wins. Here we present a novel metallic state that is realized at the antiferromagnetic (AF) quantum critical point in space dimensions three and below. At the critical point, interactions between particles are screened …
P. W. Phillips, N. E. Hussey, P. Abbamonte (Review Article, 8 July 2022, eabh4273) consider heavy fermion (HF) metals and high-$T_c$ superconductors naming them strange metals. They analyze such features of strange metals as quantum criticality, Planckian dissipation and recently observed fundamental link between the high-$T_c$ superconductivity and strange metals, and conclude that these problems can be possibly resolved within the framework of theories based on gravity, etc. In this comment we discuss that this claim is not correct and the successful description of the quantum criticality, P…
School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Beijing Jiaotong University（北京交通大学物理科学与工程学院）；Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学理论科学研究所）
A long standing mystery of fundamental importance in correlated electron physics is to understand strange non-Fermi liquid metals that are seen in diverse quantum materials. A striking experimental feature of these metals is a resistivity that is linear in temperature ($T$). In this paper we ask what it takes to obtain such non-Fermi liquid physics down to zero temperature in a translation invariant metal. If in addition the full frequency ($ω$) dependent conductivity satisfies $ω/T$ scaling, we argue that the $T$-linear resistivity must come from the intrinsic physics of the low energy fixed …
The strange metal behavior, usually characterized by a linear-in-temperature (T) resistivity, is a still unsolved mystery in solid-state physics. Usually it is associated with the proximity to a quantum critical point (a second order transition at temperature T = 0) focusing on the related divergent order parameter correlation length. Here, we propose a paradigmatic shift, focusing on a divergent characteristic time scale due to a divergent dissipation acting on the fluctuating critical modes, while their correlation length stays finite. To achieve a divergent dissipation, we propose a mechani…
Strange-metal behavior in correlated molecular conductors
Universität Stuttgart（斯图加特大学）；Saitama University（埼玉大学）；RIKEN Nishina Center（理化学研究所西村研究中心）；Shibaura Institute of Technology（芝浦工业大学）；University of Tokyo（东京大学）；Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research（马克斯·普朗克固体研究所）；Institut Néel - CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes（内耳研究所-法国国家科学研究中心与格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学）
The strange-metal state is a crucial problem in condensed matter physics highlighted by its ubiquity in almost all major correlated systems[1-7]. Its understanding could provide important insight into high-Tc superconductivity[2] and quantum criticality[8]. However, with the Fermi liquid theory failing in strange metals, understanding the highly unconventional behaviors has been a long-standing challenge. Fundamental aspects of strange metals remain elusive, including the nature of their charge carriers[1]. Here, we report the observation of a giant Nernst response in the strange-metal state i…
Temperature-linear resistance at low temperatures in strange metals is an exotic characteristic of strong correlation systems, as observed in high-TC superconducting cuprates, heavy fermions, Fe-based superconductors, ruthenates, and twisted bilayer graphene. Here, we introduce a hole-doped valley-spin insulator, V-doped WSe2, with hole pockets in the valence band. The strange metal characteristic was observed in VxW1-xSe2 at a critical carrier concentration of 9.5 x 10^20 cm-3 from 150 K to 1.8 K. The unsaturated magnetoresistance is almost linearly proportional to the magnetic field. Using t…
Strongly correlated Fermi systems are among the most intriguing, best experimentally studied and fundamental systems in physics. These are, however, in defiance of theoretical understanding. The ideas based on the concepts like Kondo lattice and involving quantum and thermal fluctuations at a quantum critical point have been used to explain the unusual physics. Alas, being suggested to describe one property, these approaches fail to explain the others. This means a real crisis in theory suggesting that there is a hidden fundamental law of nature, which remains to be recognized. A theory of fer…
The strange metal phase of optimally and overdoped cuprates exhibits a number of anomalous transport properties: unsaturating linear T resistivity, distinct relaxation times for Hall angle and resistivity, temperature dependent anisotropic relaxation times, and a characteristic crossover from supposed Fermi Liquid to linear T behavior. All receive natural explanations and quantitative fits in terms of the Hidden Fermi Liquid theory.
We model strange metals as quantum liquids without quasiparticle excitations, but with slow momentum relaxation, and with slow diffusive dynamics of a conserved charge and energy. General expressions are obtained for electrical, thermal and thermoelectric transport in the presence of an applied magnetic field using the memory matrix formalism. In the appropriate limits, our expressions agree with previous hydrodynamic and holographic results. We discuss the relationship of such results to thermoelectric and Hall transport measurements in the strange metal phase of the hole-doped cuprates.
A one band Hubbard model with intermediate coupling is shown to describe the two most important unusual features of a normal state: linear resistivity strange metal and the pseudogap. Both the spectroscopic and transport properties of the cuprates are considered on the same footing by employing a relatively simple postgaussian approximation valid for the intermediate couplings $U/t=1.5-4$ in relevant temperatures $T>100{\rm K}.$ In the doping range $\ p=0.1-0.3$, the value of $U$ is smaller than that in the parent material. For a smaller doping, especially in the Mott insulator phase, the coup…
Many unconventional superconductors exhibit a common set of anomalous charge transport properties that characterize them as `strange metals', which provides hope that there is single theory that describes them. However, model-independent connections between the strange metal and superconductivity have remained elusive. In this letter, we show that the Hall effect of the unconventional superconductor BaFe$_2$(As$_{1-x}$P$_x$)$_2$ contains an anomalous contribution arising from the correlations within the strange metal. This term has a distinctive dependence on magnetic field, which allows us to…
Reconciling strange metal transport in CeCoIn$_5$ through the difference of optical and cyclotron effective masses
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory（国家高磁场实验室，洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）；William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University（约翰霍普金斯大学威廉H米勒三世物理与天文学系）；Department of Physics, Cornell University（康奈尔大学物理系）；Institute for Materials Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室材料科学研究所）；Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University（康奈尔大学材料科学与工程系）；Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung（莱布尼兹晶体生长研究所）；Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science（康奈尔卡弗里纳米科学研究所）
Although the resistivity in traditional metals increases with temperature, its $T$ dependence vanishes at low or high temperature, albeit for different reasons. Here, we review a class of materials, known as \lq strange' metals, that can violate both principles. In materials exhibiting such behavior, the change in slope of the resistivity as the mean free path drops below the lattice constant, or as $T \rightarrow 0$, can be imperceptible, suggesting complete continuity between the charge carriers at low and high $T$. Since particles cannot scatter at length scales shorter than the interatomic…
The bilayer perovskite Sr$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$ has been widely studied as a canonical strange metal. It exhibits $T$-linear resistivity and a $T\log(1/T)$ electronic specific heat in a field-tuned quantum critical fan. Criticality is known to occur in `hot' Fermi pockets with a high density of states close to the Fermi energy. We show that while these hot pockets occupy a small fraction of the Brillouin zone, they are responsible for the anomalous transport and thermodynamics of the material. Specifically, a scattering process in which two electrons from the large, `cold' Fermi surfaces scatter into…
We study the electrical response of a wide class of strange metal phases without quasiparticles at finite temperature and charge density, with explicitly broken translational symmetry, using holography. The low frequency electrical conductivity exhibits a Drude peak, so long as momentum relaxation is slow. The relaxation time and the direct current conductivity are exactly equal to what is computed, independently of holography, via the memory function framework.
Recent progress in extremely correlated Fermi liquid theory (ECFL) and dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) enables us to compute in the $d \to \infty$ limit the resistivity of the $t-J$ model after setting $J\to0$. This is also the $U=\infty$ Hubbard model. We study three densities $n=.75,.8,.85$ that correspond to a range between the overdoped and optimally doped Mott insulating state. We delineate four distinct regimes characterized by different behaviors of the resistivity $ρ$. We find at the lowest $T$ a Gutzwiller Correlated Fermi Liquid regime with $ρ\propto T^2$ extending up to an effect…
The plasmon is a ubiquitous collective mode in charged liquids. Due to the long-range Coulomb interaction, the massless zero sound mode of the neutral system acquires a finite plasmon frequency in the long-wavelength limit. In the zero-temperature state of conventional metals -- the Fermi liquid -- the plasmon lives infinitely long at long wavelength when the system is (effectively) translationally invariant. In contrast, we will show that in strongly entangled strange metals the protection of zero sound fails at finite frequency and plasmons are always short lived regardless of their waveleng…
Some of the highest-transition-temperature superconductors across various materials classes exhibit linear-in-temperature `strange metal' or `Planckian' electrical resistivities in their normal state. It is thus believed by many that this behavior holds the key to unlock the secrets of high-temperature superconductivity. However, these materials typically display complex phase diagrams governed by various competing energy scales, making an unambiguous identification of the physics at play difficult. Here we use electrical resistivity measurements into the micro-Kelvin regime to discover superc…
