From Birefringent Electrons to a Marginal or Non-Fermi Liquid of Relativistic Spin-1/2 Fermions: An Emergent Superuniversality

ORAL

Abstract

In this talk, we present the quantum critical theory of an interacting nodal Fermi liquid of quasirelativistic pseudospin-3/2 fermions that have a noninteracting birefringent spectrum with two distinct Fermi velocities [1]. As we show, when such quasiparticles interact with gapless bosonic degrees of freedom that mediate either the long-range Coulomb interaction or its short range component (responsible for spontaneous symmetry breaking), in the deep infrared or quantum critical regime in two dimensions, the system is, respectively, described by a marginal- or a non-Fermi liquid of relativistic spin-1/2 fermions (possessing a unique velocity), and is always a marginal Fermi liquid in three dimensions. We consider a possible generalization of these scenarios to fermions with an arbitrary half-odd-integer spin, and conjecture that critical spin-1/2 excitations represent a superuniversal description of the entire family of interacting quasirelativistic fermions.

[1] B. Roy, M. P. Kennett, K. Yang, and V. Juričić, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 157602 (2018).

*M. K. was supported by NSERC of Canada. K. Y. is supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. DMR-1644779 and No. DMR 1442366.

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Presenters

  • Bitan Roy

    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
    • Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany
    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems
    • Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany
    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex System

Authors

  • Bitan Roy

    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
    • Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany
    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems
    • Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany
    • Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex System

  • Malcolm Kennett

    • Physics, Simon Fraser University
    • Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Canada
    • Simon Fraser University

  • Kun Yang

    • Florida State University
    • National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
    • Physics, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Florida State University
    • Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
    • National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Department of Physics, Florida State University

  • Vladimir Juricic

    • NORDITA, Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm University and KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
    • NORDITA, the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm University and KTH, Stockholm, Sweden
    • Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stockholm