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arXiv · 1401.7012

Transport near the Ising-nematic quantum critical point of metals in two dimensions

Sean A. Hartnoll·Raghu Mahajan·Matthias Punk·Subir Sachdev
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Abstract

We consider two-dimensional metals near a Pomeranchuk instability which breaks 90$^\circ$ lattice rotation symmetry. Such metals realize strongly-coupled non-Fermi liquids with critical fluctuations of an Ising-nematic order. At low temperatures, impurity scattering provides the dominant source of momentum relaxation, and hence a non-zero electrical resistivity. We use the memory matrix method to compute the resistivity of this non-Fermi liquid to second order in the impurity potential, without assuming the existence of quasiparticles. Impurity scattering in the $d$-wave channel acts as a random "field" on the Ising-nematic order. We find contributions to the resistivity with a nearly linear temperature dependence, along with more singular terms; the most singular is the random-field contribution which diverges in the limit of zero temperature.

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Sean A. Hartnoll, Raghu Mahajan, Matthias Punk, Subir Sachdev. 2014-01-27. Transport near the Ising-nematic quantum critical point of metals in two dimensions. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.89.155130

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