Non-Fermi-liquid d-wave metal phase of strongly interacting electrons

Abstract

Developing a theoretical framework for conducting electronic fluids qualitatively distinct from those described by Landau's Fermi-liquid theory is of central importance to many outstanding problems in condensed matter physics. One such problem is that, above the transition temperature and near optimal doping, high-transition-temperature copper-oxide superconductors exhibit `strange metal' behaviour that is inconsistent with being a traditional Landau Fermi liquid. Indeed, a microscopic theory of a strange-metal quantum phase could shed new light on the interesting low-temperature behaviour in the pseudogap regime and on the d-wave superconductor itself. Here we present a theory for a specific example of a strange metal---the 'd-wave metal'. Using variational wavefunctions, gauge theoretic arguments, and ultimately large-scale density matrix renormalization group calculations, we show that this remarkable quantum phase is the ground state of a reasonable microscopic Hamiltonian---the usual t-J model with electron kinetic energy $t$ and two-spin exchange $J$ supplemented with a frustrated electron `ring-exchange' term, which we here examine extensively on the square lattice two-leg ladder. These findings constitute an explicit theoretical example of a genuine non-Fermi-liquid metal existing as the ground state of a realistic model.

22 pages, 12 figures: 6 pages, 7 figures of main text + 16 pages, 5 figures of Supplementary Information; this is approximately the version published in Nature, minus various subedits in the main text

References in corpus (9)

• Quantum Criticality in Heavy Fermion Metals
• Computational complexity and fundamental limitations to fermionic quantum Monte Carlo simulations
• Critical fermi surfaces and non-fermi liquid metals
• Electronic Structure Calculation by First Principles for Strongly Correlated Electron Systems
• Entanglement entropy of critical spin liquids
• D-wave correlated Critical Bose Liquids in two dimensions
• Spin Bose-Metal and Valence Bond Solid phases in a spin-1/2 model with ring exchanges on a four-leg triangular ladder
• Strong-Coupling Phases of Frustrated Bosons on a 2-leg Ladder with Ring Exchange
• Exotic Gapless Mott Insulators of Bosons on Multi-Leg Ladders

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Hole-doping driven antiparallel magnetic order underlying the superconducting and pseudogap states in high-temperature cuprate superconductor