Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Marginal Fermi liquids from Fermi surfaces coupled via matrix boson gas

Vibhu Mishra*

  • *Contact author: vibhu.mishra@uni-goettingen.de

Phys. Rev. B 113, 115111 – Published 6 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1pyq-7cpy

Abstract

We propose a model of metallic critical point which we study at T=0 in the large-N limit. We start with two species of fermions ui,di, each with N flavors and a gas of matrix bosons bij with N2 components. The fermions interact with each other via the intermediate boson as ∫bij†ui†dj. The bosons have a bare dispersion ɛqb=λz|q|z and we study the problem in d spatial dimensions. We show that for d=z+1, the electronic self-energy shows marginal Fermi liquid behavior. We first evaluate the fermionic self-energy Σ(iω) using the standard approximate boson self-energy Π(q,iν)∝|ν|/|q| and find that Σ(iω)∼ωln(N/|ω|) which shows a much weaker dependence on N when compared with similar results from non-SYK large-N Ising-nematic models. Then we evaluate Σ(iω) again using a more precise form of Π(q,iν) which allows us to study the interplay between N→∞ limit for which Σ(iω)∼ωln(1/|ω|), and the ω→0 limit where we recover Σ(iω)∼ωln(N/|ω|). We also use the full bosonic self-energy to obtain the correction to the bosonic-specific heat as TNln(1/T). Since there are N2 bosons and N fermions, the bulk heat capacity for both fermions and bosons shows nearly identical functional form NVTln(N/T) and NVTln(1/T), respectively, for T→0. This suggests that coupling the hybridization operator u†d to nonrelativistic bosons for d=3 and relativistic bosons for d=2 provides a simple route to marginal Fermi liquid scaling.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (48)

  1. P. Coleman, Introduction to Many-body Physics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2015).
  2. S. Sachdev, Quantum Phases of Matter (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2023).
  3. H. Bruus and K. Flensberg, Many-body Quantum Theory in Condensed Matter Physics (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2004).
  4. X.-G. Wen, Quantum Field Theory of Many-body Systems (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2004).
  5. R. Shankar, Renormalization-group approach to interacting fermions, Rev. Mod. Phys. 66, 129 (1994).
  6. A. A. Abrikosov, L. P. Gorkov, and I. E. Dzyaloshinski, Methods of Quantum Field Theory in Statistical Physics (Dover Publications, Oxford, UK, 1975).
  7. T. Giamarchi, Quantum Physics in One Dimension (Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2003), Vol. 121.
  8. J. von Delft and H. Schoeller, Bosonization for beginners—Refermionization for experts, Ann. Phys. (NY) 510, 225 (1998).
  9. J. Voit, One-dimensional Fermi liquids, Rep. Prog. Phys. 58, 977 (1995).
  10. A. C. Hewson, The Kondo Problem to Heavy Fermions, Cambridge Studies in Magnetism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993).
  11. S. Sachdev, Quantum Phase Transitions, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2011).
  12. P. A. Lee, N. Nagaosa, and X.-G. Wen, Doping a Mott insulator: Physics of high-temperature superconductivity, Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 17 (2006).
  13. H. v. Löhneysen, A. Rosch, M. Vojta, and P. Wölfle, Fermi-liquid instabilities at magnetic quantum phase transitions, Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 1015 (2007).
  14. M. Vojta, Quantum phase transitions, Rep. Prog. Phys. 66, 2069 (2003).
  15. S.-S. Lee, Recent developments in non-Fermi liquid theory, Annu. Rev. Condens. Matter Phys. 9, 227 (2018).
  16. S.-S. Lee, Low-energy effective theory of Fermi surface coupled with U(1) gauge field in 2+1 dimensions, Phys. Rev. B 80, 165102 (2009).
  17. D. F. Mross, J. McGreevy, H. Liu, and T. Senthil, Controlled expansion for certain non-Fermi-liquid metals, Phys. Rev. B 82, 045121 (2010).
  18. Z. D. Shi, Controlled expansion for transport in a class of non-Fermi liquids, Phys. Rev. B 109, 195110 (2024).
  19. D. Chowdhury, A. Georges, O. Parcollet, and S. Sachdev, Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models and beyond: Window into non-Fermi liquids, Rev. Mod. Phys. 94, 035004 (2022).
  20. E. E. Aldape, T. Cookmeyer, A. A. Patel, and E. Altman, Solvable theory of a strange metal at the breakdown of a heavy Fermi liquid, Phys. Rev. B 105, 235111 (2022).
  21. J. A. Damia, S. Kachru, S. Raghu, and G. Torroba, Two-dimensional non-Fermi-liquid metals: A solvable large-n limit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 096402 (2019).
  22. A. L. Fitzpatrick, S. Kachru, J. Kaplan, and S. Raghu, Non-Fermi-liquid behavior of large-nb quantum critical metals, Phys. Rev. B 89, 165114 (2014).
  23. R. Mahajan, D. M. Ramirez, S. Kachru, and S. Raghu, Quantum critical metals in d=3+1 dimensions, Phys. Rev. B 88, 115116 (2013).
  24. A. L. Fitzpatrick, S. Kachru, J. Kaplan, and S. Raghu, Non-Fermi-liquid fixed point in a Wilsonian theory of quantum critical metals, Phys. Rev. B 88, 125116 (2013).
  25. M. A. Metlitski and S. Sachdev, Quantum phase transitions of metals in two spatial dimensions. I. Ising-nematic order, Phys. Rev. B 82, 075127 (2010).
  26. M. A. Metlitski and S. Sachdev, Quantum phase transitions of metals in two spatial dimensions. II. Spin density wave order, Phys. Rev. B 82, 075128 (2010).
  27. Z. D. Shi, D. V. Else, H. Goldman, and T. Senthil, Loop current fluctuations and quantum critical transport, SciPost Phys. 14, 113 (2023).
  28. Z. D. Shi, H. Goldman, Z. Dong, and T. Senthil, Excitonic quantum criticality: From multilayer graphene to narrow chern bands, Phys. Rev. B 111, 125154 (2025).
  29. A. Osterkorn, Y. Murakami, T. Kaneko, Z. Sun, A. J. Millis, and D. Golež, Optical signatures of dynamical excitonic condensates, Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 106902 (2025).
  30. A. Panigrahi and A. Kumar, Non-Fermi liquids from subsystem symmetry breaking in van der Waals multilayers, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 236502 (2025).
  31. J. A. Hertz, Quantum critical phenomena, Phys. Rev. B 14, 1165 (1976).
  32. V. Rosenhaus, An introduction to the SYK model, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 52, 323001 (2019).
  33. H. Guo, A. A. Patel, I. Esterlis, and S. Sachdev, Large-n theory of critical Fermi surfaces. II. Conductivity, Phys. Rev. B 106, 115151 (2022).
  34. A. A. Patel, H. Guo, I. Esterlis, and S. Sachdev, Universal theory of strange metals from spatially random interactions, Science 381, 790 (2023).
  35. I. Esterlis, H. Guo, A. A. Patel, and S. Sachdev, Large-n theory of critical Fermi surfaces, Phys. Rev. B 103, 235129 (2021).
  36. D. V. Else and T. Senthil, Strange metals as ersatz Fermi liquids, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 086601 (2021).
  37. A. Gleis, S.-S. B. Lee, G. Kotliar, and J. von Delft, Dynamical scaling and Planckian dissipation due to heavy-fermion quantum criticality, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 106501 (2025).
  38. D. V. Khveshchenko, Novel approaches to generic non-Fermi liquids: Higher-dimensional bosonization vs generalized holography, Lith. J. Phys. 63, 85 (2023).
  39. P. A. Nosov, Y.-M. Wu, and S. Raghu, Entropy and de Haas–van Alphen oscillations of a three-dimensional marginal Fermi liquid, Phys. Rev. B 109, 075107 (2024).
  40. B. Zwiebach, A First Course in String Theory (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004).
  41. C. M. Varma, P. B. Littlewood, S. Schmitt-Rink, E. Abrahams, and A. E. Ruckenstein, Phenomenology of the normal state of cu-o high-temperature superconductors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 1996 (1989).
  42. K. Huang, Statistical Mechanics (John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 2008).
  43. M. Kardar, Statistical Physics of Particles (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2007).
  44. P. A. Nosov, I. S. Burmistrov, and S. Raghu, Interaction-induced metallicity in a two-dimensional disordered non-Fermi liquid, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 256604 (2020).
  45. T. C. Wu, Y. Liao, and M. S. Foster, Quantum interference of hydrodynamic modes in a dirty marginal Fermi liquid, Phys. Rev. B 106, 155108 (2022).
  46. L. V. Delacrétaz, Y.-H. Du, U. Mehta, and D. T. Son, Nonlinear bosonization of Fermi surfaces: The method of coadjoint orbits, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 033131 (2022).
  47. U. Mehta, A road to perturbative non-Fermi liquids, in Postmodern Fermi Liquids (Springer, Berlin, 2024), pp. 75–81.
  48. V. Mishra, Spectral functions data set, Zenodo (2026), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18300967.

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation