A physical model for a mixed-valence impurity in a metal must satisfy the Friedel screening theorem for both valences. Such a model is shown, following earlier work which showed low energy singularities in it, to be supersymmetric, leading to a free
Majorana and a phase-shifted Majorana excitation. The theory extended approximately to a lattice of mixed-valence ions at appropriate filling gives, without fine-tuning the parameters, a protected gapless Majorana fermion band across the chemical potential, besides the mixed-valence particle and hole bands separated by gaps. In this situation the system is electrically neutral in linear response but has de Haas-van Alphen oscillations. This is used to explain the recently observed magneto-oscillations in mixed-valence insulators as well as their accompanying low energy thermodynamic and relaxation rate anomalies. Some predictions to test the validity of the theoretical results are provided, the most striking of which is that there should be extensive ground state entropy in such compounds.
The conjecture made recently by the group at Sherbrooke, that their observed anomalous thermal Hall effect in the pseudo-gap phase in the cuprates is due to phonons, is supported on the basis of an earlier result that the observed loop-current order
in this phase must induce lattice distortions which are linear in the order parameter and an applied magnetic field. The lowered symmetry of the crystal depends on the direction of the field. A consequence is that the elastic constants change proportional to the field and are shown to induce axial thermal transport with the same symmetries as the Lorentz force enforces for the normal electronic Hall effect. Direct measurements of elastic constants in a magnetic field are suggested to verify the quantitative aspects of the results.
Recent experimental results: (i) the measurement of the $T ln T$ specific heat in cuprates and the earlier such results in some heavy fermion compounds, (ii) the measurement of the single-particle scattering rates, (iii) the density fluctuation spect
rum in cuprates and (iv) the long standing results on the linear temperature dependence of the resistivity, show that a theory of the quantum-criticality in these compounds based on the solution of the dissipative 2D - XY model gives the temperature and frequency dependence of each of them, and the magnitudes of all four with one dimensionless coupling parameter. These low frequency or temperature dependences persist to an upper cut-off which is measured to be about the same from the singularity in the specific heat or the saturation of the single-particle self-energy. The same two parameters are deduced in the analysis of results of photoemission experiments to give d-wave superconductivity and its transition temperature. The coupling parameter and the cut-off had been estimated in the microscopic theory to within a factor of 2. The simplicity of the results depends on the discovery that orthogonal topological excitations in space and in time determine the fluctuations near criticality such that the space and time metrics are free of each other. The interacting fermions then form a marginal Fermi-liquid.
The proposed loop-current order in cuprates cannot give the observed pseudogap and the Fermi-arcs because it preserves translation symmetry. A modification to a periodic arrangement of the four possible orientations of the order parameter with a larg
e period of between about 12 to 30 lattice constants is proposed and shown in a simple and controlled calculation to give one-particle spectra with every feature as in the ARPES experiments. The results follow from (1) the currents at the boundaries of the periodic domains with similar topology as the Affleck-Marston flux phase, and (2) the mixing introduced by the boundary currents between the states near the erstwhile Fermi-surface and the ghost Fermi-surfaces which are displaced from it by mini-reciprocal vectors. The proposed idea can be ruled out or verified by high resolution diffraction or imaging experiments. It does not run afoul of the variety of different experiments consistent with the loop-current order as well as the theory of the marginal Fermi-liquid and d-wave superconductivity based on quantum-critical fluctuations of the loop current order.
The density of low energy particle-hole excitations is non-analytic in a singular Fermi-liquid, but it is altered on entering a superconducting state in which, in the pure limit, it vanishes asymptotically at the chemical potential and in general is
analytic. The single-particle excitations in the superconducting states are then quasi-particles so that a form of Landau theory may be constructed for thermodynamic and transport properties in the superconducting state. In this theory, the renormalization of measurable properties due to quasi-particle interactions, such as specific heat, compressibility, magnetic susceptibility, superfluid density, etc. changes in a temperature dependent fashion from the non-interacting theory. This is illustrated by showing the renormalization of these quantities and the relation between the parameters introduced to account for their temperature dependence. When the renormalizations in the normal state are large or singular, temperature dependence of properties in the superconducting states are then in general not useful for identifying the nodal character or symmetry of the superconducting state except for measurements at very low temperatures, upper limits of which are specified. The results obtained are expected to be useful in interpreting the experimental results for the temperature dependence of various properties in the superconducting state born of singular Fermi liquids.
We examine recent magnetic torque measurements in two compounds, $gamma$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$ and RuCl$_3$, which have been discussed as possible realizations of the Kitaev model. The analysis of the reported discontinuity in torque, as an external magnetic
field is rotated across the $c-$axis in both crystals, suggests that they have a translationally-invariant chiral spin-order of the from $<{bf S}_i. ({bf S}_j ~times ~ {bf S}_k)> e 0$ in the ground state and persisting over a very wide range of magnetic field and temperature. An extra-ordinary $|B|B^2$ dependence of the torque for small fields, beside the usual $B^2$ part, is predicted due to the chiral spin-order, and found to be consistent with experiments upon further analysis of the data. Other experiments such as inelastic scattering and thermal Hall effect and several questions raised by the discovery of chiral spin-order, including its topological consequences are discussed.
An important problem in contemporary physics concerns quantum-critical fluctuations in metals. A scaling function for the momentum, frequency, temperature and magnetic field dependence of the correlation function near a 2D-ferromagnetic quantum-criti
cal point (QCP) is constructed, and its singularities are determined by comparing to the recent calculations of the correlation functions of the dissipative quantum XY model (DQXY). The calculations are motivated by the measured properties of the metallic compound YFe$_2$Al$_{10}$, which is a realization of the DQXY model in 2D. The frequency, temperature and magnetic field dependence of the scaling function as well as the singularities measured in the experiments are given by the theory without adjustable exponents. The same model is applicable to the superconductor-insulator transitions, classes of metallic AFM-QCPs, and as fluctuations of the loop-current ordered state in hole-doped cuprates. The results presented here lend credence to the solution found for the 2D-DQXY model, and its applications in understanding quantum-critical properties of diverse systems.
The density correlations of some singular Fermi liquids with anomalous properties such as resistivity varying linearly with T at low temperatures, a $T log T$ contribution to the entropy and thermopower, etc., are expected to be quite different from
that in Landau Fermi liquids. A possible statistical mechanical model for the quantum critical fluctuations in diverse systems with such properties is the 2D dissipative quantum XY model. Exact relations between the density correlations and singular irreducible vertices due to coupling of Fermions to the topological excitations of the 2D dissipative quantum XY model are used to derive results which were proposed phenomenologically long ago but are measurable only recently due to advances in experimental techniques. The density correlations are unusual at all momenta ${bf q}$ and energy $ u$, from the hydrodynamic limit to that for large momenta and energy. The hydrodynamic limit together with the continuity equation gives the linear in T resistivity. The density correlations are almost independent of frequency up to a high frequency cut-off for $q_{ZB} gtrsim q >> u/v_F$; $q_{ZB}$ is the Brillouin zone boundary and $v_F$ is the Fermi-velocity. The results should be applicable to loop-current quantum criticality in cuprates, and to 2D Fe based compounds near their antiferromagnetic quantum-criticality. The relation of the results to the temperature and frequency dependent conductivity and to Raman response is also discussed.
Scaling relations are used to study cross-overs, due to anisotropic spin interactions or single ion anisotropy, and due to disorder, in the thermodynamics and correlation functions near quantum-critical transitions. The principal results are simple w
ith a wide range of applications. The region of attraction to the stable anisotropic fixed point in the quantum-critical region is exponentially enhanced by the dynamical critical exponent $z$ compared to the region of attraction to the fixed point in the quantum disordered region. The result implies that, even for small anisotropy, the region of attraction to the stable incommensurate Ising or planar metallic anti-ferromagnetic critical points, which belong to the universality class of the XY model with $z to infty$, covers the entire quantum-critical region. In crossovers due to disorder, the instability of the pure fixed point in the quantum disordered region is exponentially enhanced by $z$ compared to that in the quantum-critical region. This result suggests that for some classes of disorder and for large enough $z$, one may find singularities in the correlations as a function of frequency and temperature down to very low temperatures even though the correlation length in space remains short range.
Earlier Monte-Carlo calculations on the dissipative two-dimensional XY model are extended in several directions. We study the phase diagram and the correlation functions when dissipation is very small, where it has properties of the classical 3D-XY t
ransition, i.e. one with a dynamical critical exponent $z=1$. The transition changes from $z=1$ to the class of criticality with $z to infty$ driven by topological defects, discovered earlier, beyond a critical dissipation. We also find that the critical correlations have power-law singularities as a function of tuning the ratio of the kinetic energy to the potential energy for fixed large dissipation, as opposed to essential singularities on tuning dissipation keeping the former fixed. A phase with temporal disorder but spatial order of the Kosterlitz-Thouless form is also further investigated. We also present results for the transition when the allowed Caldeira-Leggett form of dissipation and the allowed form of dissipation coupling to the compact rotor variables are both included. The nature of the transition is then determined by the Caldeira-Leggett form.
