arXiv subjects

Sean A. Hartnoll

Publications and source records attributed to Sean A. Hartnoll.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Thermoelectric signatures of the electron-phonon fluid in PtSn4

In most materials, transport can be described by the motion of distinct species of quasiparticles, such as electrons and phonons. Strong interactions between quasiparticles, however, can lead to collective behaviour, including the possibility of viscous hydrodynamic flow. In the case of electrons and phonons, an electron-phonon fluid is expected to exhibit strong phonon-drag transport signatures and an anomalously low thermal conductivity. The Dirac semi-metal PtSn4 has a very low resistivity at low temperatures and shows a pronounced phonon drag peak in the low temperature thermopower; it is therefore an excellent candidate for hosting a hydrodynamic electron-phonon fluid. Here we report measurements of the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the longitudinal and Hall electrical resistivities, the thermopower and the thermal conductivity of PtSn4. We confirm a phonon drag peak in the thermopower near 14 K and observe a concurrent breakdown of the Lorenz ratio below the Sommerfeld value. Both of these facts are expected for an electron-phonon fluid with a quasi-conserved total momentum. A hierarchy between momentum-conserving and momentum-relaxing scattering timescales is corroborated through measurements of the magnetic field dependence of the electrical and Hall resistivity and of the thermal conductivity. These results show that PtSn4 exhibits key features of hydrodynamic transport.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Kinetic theory of transport for inhomogeneous electron fluids

The interplay between electronic interactions and disorder is neglected in the conventional Boltzmann theory of transport, yet can play an essential role in determining the resistivity of unconventional metals. When quasiparticles are long-lived, one can account for these intertwined effects by solving spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equations. Assuming smooth disorder and neglecting umklapp scattering, we solve these inhomogeneous kinetic equations and compute the electrical resistivity across the ballistic-to-hydrodynamic transition. An important consequence of electron-electron interactions is the modification of the momentum relaxation time; this effect is ignored in the conventional theory. We characterize precisely when interactions enhance the momentum scattering rate, and when they decrease it. Our approach unifies existing semiclassical theories of transport and reveals novel transport mechanisms. In particular, we explain how the resistivity can be proportional to the rate of momentum-conserving collisions. We compare this result with existing transport mysteries, including the disorder-independent $T^2$ resistivity of many Fermi liquids, and the linear-in-$T$ "Planckian-limited" resistivity of many strange metals.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Theory of hydrodynamic transport in fluctuating electronic charge density wave states

We describe the collective hydrodynamic motion of an incommensurate charge density wave state in a clean electronic system. Our description simultaneously incorporates the effects of both pinning due to weak disorder and also phase relaxation due to proliferating dislocations. We show that the interplay between these two phenomena has important consequences for charge and momentum transport. For instance, it can lead to metal-insulator transitions. We furthermore identify signatures of fluctuating density waves in frequency and spatially resolved conductivities. Phase disordering is well known to lead to a large viscosity. We derive a precise formula for the phase relaxation rate in terms of the viscosity in the dislocation cores. We thereby determine the viscosity of the superconducting state of BSCCO from the observed melting dynamics of Abrikosov lattices and show that the result is consistent with dissipation into Bogoliubov quasiparticles.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Bad Metals from Fluctuating Density Waves

Bad metals have a large resistivity without being strongly disordered. In many bad metals the Drude peak moves away from zero frequency as the resistivity becomes large at increasing temperatures. We catalogue the position and width of the `displaced Drude peak' in the observed optical conductivity of several families of bad metals, showing that $ω_\text{peak} \sim Δω\sim k_BT/\hbar$. This is the same quantum critical timescale that underpins the $T$-linear dc resistivity of many of these materials. We provide a unified theoretical description of the optical and dc transport properties of bad metals in terms of the hydrodynamics of short range quantum critical fluctuations of incommensurate density wave order. Within hydrodynamics, pinned translational order is essential to obtain the nonzero frequency peak.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Hydrodynamic theory of quantum fluctuating superconductivity

A hydrodynamic theory of transport in quantum mechanically phase-disordered superconductors is possible when supercurrent relaxation can be treated as a slow process. We obtain general results for the frequency-dependent conductivity of such a regime. With time-reversal invariance, the conductivity is characterized by a Drude-like peak, with width given by the supercurrent relaxation rate. Using the memory matrix formalism, we obtain a formula for this width (and hence also the dc resistivity) when the supercurrent is relaxed by short range Coulomb interactions. This leads to a new -- effective field theoretic and fully quantum -- derivation of a classic result on flux flow resistance. With strong breaking of time-reversal invariance, the optical conductivity exhibits what we call a `hydrodynamic supercyclotron' resonance. We obtain the frequency and decay rate of this resonance for the case of supercurrent relaxation due to an emergent Chern-Simons gauge field. The supercurrent decay rate in this `topologically ordered superfluid vortex liquid' is determined by the conductivities of the normal component of the liquid. Our work gives a controlled framework for low temperature metallic phases arising from phase-disordered superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

An upper bound on transport

The linear growth of operators in local quantum systems leads to an effective lightcone even if the system is non-relativistic. We show that consistency of diffusive transport with this lightcone places an upper bound on the diffusivity: $D \lesssim v^2 τ_\text{eq}$. The operator growth velocity $v$ defines the lightcone and $τ_\text{eq}$ is the local equilibration timescale, beyond which the dynamics of conserved densities is diffusive. We verify that the bound is obeyed in various weakly and strongly interacting theories. In holographic models this bound establishes a relation between the hydrodynamic and leading non-hydrodynamic quasinormal modes of planar black holes. Our bound relates transport data --- including the electrical resistivity and the shear viscosity --- to the local equilibration time, even in the absence of a quasiparticle description. In this way, the bound sheds light on the observed $T$-linear resistivity of many unconventional metals, the shear viscosity of the quark-gluon plasma and the spin transport of unitary fermions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Resistivity bound for hydrodynamic bad metals

We obtain a rigorous upper bound on the resistivity $ρ$ of an electron fluid whose electronic mean free path is short compared to the scale of spatial inhomogeneities. When such a hydrodynamic electron fluid supports a non-thermal diffusion process -- such as an imbalance mode between different bands -- we show that the resistivity bound becomes $ρ\lesssim A \, Γ$. The coefficient $A$ is independent of temperature and inhomogeneity lengthscale, and $Γ$ is a microscopic momentum-preserving scattering rate. In this way we obtain a unified and novel mechanism -- without umklapp -- for $ρ\sim T^2$ in a Fermi liquid and the crossover to $ρ\sim T$ in quantum critical regimes. This behavior is widely observed in transition metal oxides, organic metals, pnictides and heavy fermion compounds and has presented a longstanding challenge to transport theory. Our hydrodynamic bound allows phonon contributions to diffusion constants, including thermal diffusion, to directly affect the electrical resistivity.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Matrix Quantum Mechanics from Qubits

We introduce a transverse field Ising model with order N^2 spins interacting via a nonlocal quartic interaction. The model has an O(N,Z), hyperoctahedral, symmetry. We show that the large N partition function admits a saddle point in which the symmetry is enhanced to O(N). We further demonstrate that this `matrix saddle' correctly computes large N observables at weak and strong coupling. The matrix saddle undergoes a continuous quantum phase transition at intermediate couplings. At the transition the matrix eigenvalue distribution becomes disconnected. The critical excitations are described by large N matrix quantum mechanics. At the critical point, the low energy excitations are waves propagating in an emergent 1+1 dimensional spacetime.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Transport in Chern-Simons-Matter Theories

The frequency-dependent longitudinal and Hall conductivities --- $σ_{xx}$ and $σ_{xy}$ --- are dimensionless functions of $ω/T$ in 2+1 dimensional CFTs at nonzero temperature. These functions characterize the spectrum of charged excitations of the theory and are basic experimental observables. We compute these conductivities for large $N$ Chern-Simons theory with fermion matter. The computation is exact in the 't Hooft coupling $λ$ at $N = \infty$. We describe various physical features of the conductivity, including an explicit relation between the weight of the delta function at $ω= 0$ in $σ_{xx}$ and the existence of infinitely many higher spin conserved currents in the theory. We also compute the conductivities perturbatively in Chern-Simons theory with scalar matter and show that the resulting functions of $ω/T$ agree with the strong coupling fermionic result. This provides a new test of the conjectured 3d bosonization duality. In matching the Hall conductivities we resolve an outstanding puzzle by carefully treating an extra anomaly that arises in the regularization scheme used.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Entropy production, viscosity bounds and bumpy black holes

The ratio of shear viscosity to entropy density, $η/s$, is computed in various holographic geometries that break translation invariance (but are isotropic). The shear viscosity does not have a hydrodynamic interpretation in such backgrounds, but does quantify the rate of entropy production due to a strain. Fluctuations of the metric components $δg_{xy}$ are massive about these backgrounds, leading to $η/s < 1/(4π)$ at all finite temperatures (even in Einstein gravity). As the temperature is taken to zero, different behaviors are possible. If translation symmetry breaking is irrelevant in the far IR, then $η/s$ tends to a constant at $T=0$. This constant can be parametrically small. If the translation symmetry is broken in the far IR (which nonetheless develops emergent scale invariance), then $η/s \sim T^{2 ν}$ as $T \to 0$, with $ν\leq 1$ in all cases we have considered. While these results violate simple bounds on $η/s$, we note that they are consistent with a possible bound on the rate of entropy production due to strain.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Thermal conductivity at a disordered quantum critical point

Strongly disordered and strongly interacting quantum critical points are difficult to access with conventional field theoretic methods. They are, however, both experimentally important and theoretically interesting. In particular, they are expected to realize universal incoherent transport. Such disordered quantum critical theories have recently been constructed holographically by deforming a CFT by marginally relevant disorder. In this paper we find additional disordered fixed points via relevant disordered deformations of a holographic CFT. Using recently developed methods in holographic transport, we characterize the thermal conductivity in both sets of theories in 1+1 dimensions. The thermal conductivity is found to tend to a constant at low temperatures in one class of fixed points, and to scale as $T^{0.3}$ in the other. Furthermore, in all cases the thermal conductivity exhibits discrete scale invariance, with logarithmic in temperature oscillations superimposed on the low temperature scaling behavior. At no point do we use the replica trick.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Incoherent transport in clean quantum critical metals

In a clean quantum critical metal, and in the absence of umklapp, most d.c. conductivities are formally infinite due to momentum conservation. However, there is a particular combination of the charge and heat currents which has a finite, universal conductivity. In this paper, we describe the physics of this conductivity $σ_Q$ in quantum critical metals obtained by charge doping a strongly interacting conformal field theory. We show that it satisfies an Einstein relation and controls the diffusivity of a conserved charge in the metal. We compute $σ_Q$ in a class of theories with holographic gravitational duals. Finally, we show how the temperature scaling of $σ_Q$ depends on certain critical exponents characterizing the quantum critical metal. The holographic results are found to be reproduced by the scaling analysis, with the charge density operator becoming marginal in the emergent low energy quantum critical theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Entanglement entropy in two dimensional string theory

To understand an emergent spacetime is to understand the emergence of locality. Entanglement entropy is a powerful diagnostic of locality, because locality leads to a large amount of short distance entanglement. Two dimensional string theory is among the very simplest instances of an emergent spatial dimension. We compute the entanglement entropy in the large $N$ matrix quantum mechanics dual to two dimensional string theory, in the semiclassical limit of weak string coupling. We isolate a logarithmically large, but finite, contribution that corresponds to the short distance entanglement of the tachyon field in the emergent spacetime. From the spacetime point of view, the entanglement is regulated by a nonperturbative `graininess' of space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Emergent scale invariance of disordered horizons

We construct planar black hole solutions in AdS_3 and AdS_4 in which the boundary CFT is perturbed by marginally relevant quenched disorder. We show that the entropy density of the horizon has the scaling temperature dependence s \sim T^{(d-1)/z} (with d=2,3). The dynamical critical exponent z is computed numerically and, at weak disorder, analytically. These results lend support to the claim that the perturbed CFT flows to a disordered quantum critical theory in the IR.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Scaling theory of the cuprate strange metals

We show that the anomalous temperature scaling of five distinct transport quantities in the strange metal regime of the cuprate superconductors can be reproduced with only two nontrivial critical exponents. The quantities are: (i) the electrical resistivity, (ii) the Hall angle, (iii) the Hall Lorenz ratio, (iv) the magnetoresistance and (v) the thermopower. The exponents are the dynamical critical exponent z = 4/3 and an anomalous scaling dimension Phi = -2/3 for the charge density operator.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Large N matrices from a nonlocal spin system

Large N matrices underpin the best understood models of emergent spacetime. We suggest that large N matrices can themselves be emergent from simple quantum mechanical spin models with finite dimensional Hilbert spaces. We exhibit the emergence of large N matrices in a nonlocal statistical physics model of order N^2 Ising spins. The spin partition function is shown to admit a large N saddle described by a matrix integral, which we solve. The matrix saddle is dominant at high temperatures, metastable at intermediate temperatures and ceases to exist below a critical order one temperature. The matrix saddle is disordered in a sense we make precise and competes with ordered low energy states. We verify our analytic results by Monte Carlo simulation of the spin system.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Holographic mutual information and distinguishability of Wilson loop and defect operators

The mutual information of disconnected regions in large $N$ gauge theories with holographic gravity duals can undergo phase transitions. These occur when connected and disconnected bulk Ryu-Takayanagi surfaces exchange dominance. That is, the bulk `soap bubble' snaps as the boundary regions are drawn apart. We give a gauge-theoretic characterization of this transition: States with and without a certain defect operator insertion -- the defect separates the entangled spatial regions -- are shown to be perfectly distinguishable if and only if the Ryu-Takayanagi surface is connected. Meanwhile, states with and without a certain Wilson loop insertion -- the Wilson loop nontrivially threads the spatial regions -- are perfectly distinguishable if and only if the Ryu-Takayanagi surface is disconnected. The quantum relative entropy of two perfectly distinguishable states is infinite. The results are obtained by relating the soap bubble transition to Hawking-Page (deconfinement) transitions in the Renyi entropies, where defect operators and Wilson loops are known to act as order parameters.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Theory of universal incoherent metallic transport

In an incoherent metal, transport is controlled by the collective diffusion of energy and charge rather than by quasiparticle or momentum relaxation. We explore the possibility of a universal bound $D \gtrsim \hbar v_F^2/(k_B T)$ on the underlying diffusion constants in an incoherent metal. Such a bound is loosely motivated by results from holographic duality, the uncertainty principle and from measurements of diffusion in strongly interacting non-metallic systems. Metals close to saturating this bound are shown to have a linear in temperature resistivity with an underlying dissipative timescale matching that recently deduced from experimental data on a wide range of metals. This bound may be responsible for the ubiquitous appearance of high temperature regimes in metals with $T$-linear resistivity, motivating direct probes of diffusive processes and measurements of charge susceptibilities.

cond-mat.str-el↗