Transport Properties of Strongly Correlated Fermi Systems

Abstract

Physicists are actively debating the nature of the quantum critical phase transition that determines the low-temperature properties of metals with heavy fermions. Important experimental observations of their transport properties incisively probe the nature of the quantum critical phase transition. In our short review, we consider the transport properties of strongly correlated Fermi systems like heavy fermion metals and high—Tc superconductors. Their transport properties are defined by strong inter-particle interactions, forming flat bands in these compounds. These properties do not coincide with those of conventional metals. Indeed, in contrast to the behavior of the transport properties of conventional metals, the strongly correlated compounds exhibit linear temperature resistivity ρ(T)∝T. We analyze the magnetoresistance and show that under the application of the magnetic field, it becomes negative. It is shown that near a quantum phase transition, when the density of the electronic states diverges, semiclassical physics remains applicable to describe the resistivity ρ of strongly correlated metals due to the presence of a transverse zero-sound collective mode, representing the phonon mode in solids. We demonstrate that when T exceeds the extremely low Debye temperature TD, the resistivity ρ(T) changes linearly with T since the mechanism of formation of the T-dependence ρ(T) is a similar electron-phonon mechanism, which predominates at high temperatures in ordinary metals. Thus, in the region of T-linear resistance, electron-phonon scattering leads to a lifetime of τ quasiparticles practically independent of the material, which is expressed as the ratio of the Planck constant ℏ to the Boltzmann constant kB, Tτ∼ℏ/kB. We explain that due to the non-Fermi-liquid behavior, the real part of the frequency-dependent optical conductivity σoptR(ω) exhibits a scaling behavior and demonstrates the unusual power law behavior σoptR(ω)∝ω−1, rather than the well-known one shown by conventional metals, σoptR(ω)∝ω−2. All our theoretical considerations are illustrated and compared with the corresponding experimental facts. Our results are in a good agreement with experimental observations.

Keywords

• quantum phase transitions
• heavy fermions
• non-Fermi liquid behavior
• scaling behavior
• topological phase transitions