A critical theory for solidification of a liquid Fermi liquid

Tarun Grover; John McGreevy

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arXiv · 2504.06508

A critical theory for solidification of a liquid Fermi liquid

Tarun Grover·John McGreevy

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Abstract

We give a simple description of a zero-temperature phase transition between a liquid metal and a solid. The critical point has a Fermi surface as well as a Bose surface, a sphere in momentum space of gapless bosonic excitations. We find a fixed point of the renormalization group governing such a non-Fermi liquid, using an expansion in the codimension of both the Fermi and Bose surfaces. We comment on the nature of the solid phase and possible physical realizations.

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cond-mat.str-el cond-mat.quant-gas cond-mat.stat-mech hep-th

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Tarun Grover, John McGreevy. 2025-04-09. A critical theory for solidification of a liquid Fermi liquid. https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06508

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