Paper detail

Non-Landau Quantum Phase Transitions and nearly-Marginal non-Fermi Liquid

Non-fermi liquid and unconventional quantum critical points (QCP) with strong fractionalization are two exceptional phenomena beyond the classic condensed matter doctrines, both of which could occur in strongly interacting quantum many-body systems. This work demonstrates that using a controlled method one can construct a non-Fermi liquid within a considerable energy window based on the unique physics of unconventional QCPs. We will focus on the "nearly-marginal non-Fermi liquid", defined as a state whose fermion self-energy scales as $Σ_f(i ω) \sim i \mathrm{sgn}(ω)|ω|^α$ with $α$ close to $1$ in a considerable energy window. The nearly-marginal non-fermi liquid is obtained by coupling an electron fermi surface to unconventional QCPs that are beyond the Landau's paradigm. This mechanism relies on the observation that the anomalous dimension $η$ of the order parameter of these unconventional QCPs can be close to $1$, which is significantly larger than conventional Landau phase transitions, for example the Wilson-Fisher fixed points. The fact that $η\sim 1$ justifies a perturbative renormalization group calculation proposed earlier. Various candidate QCPs that meet this desired condition are proposed.