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Anomalous metallic properties are often observed in the proximity of quantum critical points, with violation of the Fermi Liquid paradigm. We propose a scenario where, near the quantum critical point, 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 a strange 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 increasing damping when the temperature decreases, accounting for both the linear-in-temperature resistivity and the seemingly divergent specific heat observed, e.g., in high-temperature superconducting cuprates and some heavy-fermion metals.
Besides the mechanism responsible for high critical temperature superconductivity, the grand unresolved issue of the cuprates is the occurrence of a strange metallic state above the so-called pseudogap temperature T*. Even though such state has been successfully described within a phenomenological scheme, the so-called Marginal Fermi-Liquid theory, a microscopic explanation is still missing. However, recent resonant X-ray scattering experiments identified a new class of charge density fluctuations characterized by low characteristic energies and short correlation lengths, which are related to the well-known charge density waves. These fluctuations are present over a wide region of the temperature-vs-doping phase diagram and extend well above T*. Here we investigate the consequences of charge density fluctuations on the electron and transport properties and find that they can explain the strange metal phenomenology. Therefore, charge density fluctuations are likely the long-sought microscopic mechanism underlying the peculiarities of the metallic state of cuprates.
Recent resonant X-ray scattering experiments on cuprates allowed to identify a new kind of collective excitations, known as charge density fluctuations, which have finite characteristic wave vector, short correlation length and small characteristic energy. It was then shown that these fluctuations provide a microscopic scattering mechanism that accounts for the anomalous transport properties of cuprates in the so-called strange-metal phase and are a source of anomalies in the specific heat. In this work, we retrace the main steps that led us to attributing a central role to charge density fluctuations in the strange-metal phase of cuprates, discuss the state of the art on the issue and provide an in-depth analysis of the contribution of charge density fluctuations to the specific heat.
We study a model for low-doped cuprates where holes aggregate into oriented stripe segments which have a magnetic vortex and antivortex at the extremes. We argue that due to the interaction between segments a ferronematic state with macroscopic polarization is stabilized. This state can be characterized as a charge nematic which, due to the net polarization, breaks inversion symmetry and also exhibits an incommensurate spin modulation. Our calculation can reproduce the doping-dependent spin structure factor of lanthanum cuprates in excellent agreement with experiment and allows to rationalize experiments in which the incommensurability has an order-parameter-like temperature dependence.
High-temperature superconductors exhibit a characteristic hourglass-shaped spectrum of magnetic fluctuations which most likely contribute to the pairing glue in the cuprates. Recent neutron scattering experiments in strongly underdoped compounds have revealed a significant low energy anisotropy of these fluctuations which we explain by a model in which topological defects of the antiferromagnet clump to producing domain wall segments with ferronematic order. This state does not invoke global charge order but breaks C4 rotational and inversion symmetry. The incommensurability of the low doping charge-disordered state is in good agreement with experiment and interpolates smoothly with the incommensurability of the stripe phase at higher doping. Within linear spin-wave theory the dynamic structure factor is in very good agreement with inelastic neutron scattering data and can account for the observed energy dependent anisotropy.
Domain wall structures in the two-dimensional Hubbard modelwith long-range Coulomb interaction
(2000)
Empirical evidence in heavy fermion, pnictide and other systems suggests that unconventional superconductivity appears associated to some form of real-space electronic order. For the cuprates, despite several proposals, the emergence of order in the phase diagram between the commensurate antiferromagnetic state and the superconducting state is not well understood. Here we show that in this regime doped holes assemble in ‘electronic polymers’. Within a Monte Carlo study, we find that in clean systems by lowering the temperature the polymer melt condenses first in a smectic state and then in a Wigner crystal both with the addition of inversion symmetry breaking. Disorder blurs the positional order leaving a robust inversion symmetry breaking and a nematic order, accompanied by vector chiral spin order and with the persistence of a thermodynamic transition. Such electronic phases, whose properties are reminiscent of soft-matter physics, produce charge and spin responses in good accord with experiments.
Pseudogap and (An)isotropic Scattering in the Fluctuating Charge-Density Wave Phase of Cuprates
(2017)
We present a general scenario for high-temperature superconducting cuprates, based on the presence of dynamical charge density waves (CDWs) and to the occurrence of a CDW quantum critical point, which occurs, e.g., at doping p ≈ 0.16 in YBa2Cu3O6 + δ (YBCO). In this framework, the pseudogap temperature T∗ is interpreted in terms of a reduction of the density of states due to incipient CDW and, at lower temperature to the possible formation of incoherent superconducting pairs. The dynamically fluctuating character of CDW accounts for the different temperatures at which the CDW onset revealed by X-ray scattering (Tons(p)), and the static three-dimensional CDW ordering appear. We also investigate the anisotropic character of the CDW-mediated scattering. We find that this is strongly anisotropic only close to the CDW quantum critical point (QCP) at low temperature and very low energy. It rapidly becomes nearly isotropic and marginal-Fermi-liquid-like away from the CDW QCP and at finite (even rather small) energies. This may reconcile the interpretation of Hall measurements in terms of anisotropic CDW scattering with recent photoemission experiments Bok, J.M., et al. Sci. Adv. 2, e1501329 (2016).
The strange metal behavior, usually characterized by a linear-in-temperature (T) resistivity, is a still unsolved mystery in solid-state physics. It is often associated with the proximity to a quantum critical point (a second order transition at temperature T=0, leading to a broken symmetry phase) 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 mechanism based on the coupling between a local order parameter fluctuation and electron density diffusive modes that accounts both for the linear-in-T resistivity and for the logarithmic specific heat versus temperature ratio CV/T∼log(1/T), down to low temperatures.
In the last few years, charge density waves (CDWs) have been ubiquitously observed in high-temperature superconducting cuprates and are now the most investigated among the competing orders in the still hot debate on these systems. A wealth of new experimental data raises several fundamental issues that challenge the various theoretical proposals. We here relate our mean-field instability line T0CDW of a strongly correlated Fermi liquid to the pseudogap T∗(p) line, marking in this way the onset of CDW-fluctuations. These fluctuations reduce strongly the mean-field critical line. Controlling this reduction via an infrared frequency cutoff related to the characteristic time of the probes, we account for the complex experimental temperature versus doping phase diagram. We provide a coherent scenario explaining why different CDW onset curves are observed by different experimental probes and seem to extrapolate at zero temperature into seemingly different quantum critical points (QCPs) in the intermediate and overdoped region. The nearly singular anisotropic scattering mediated by these fluctuations also accounts for the rapid changes of the Hall number seen in experiments and provides the first necessary step for a possible Fermi surface reconstruction fully establishing at lower doping. Finally, we show that phase fluctuations of the CDWs, which are enhanced in the presence of strong correlations near the Mott insulating phase, naturally account for the disappearance of the CDWs at low doping with yet another QCP as seen by the experiments.