Long Wavelength Correlations and Transport in a Marginal Fermi Liquid

TL;DR

This paper derives the hydrodynamic properties of a marginal Fermi liquid from a microscopic perspective, connecting fluctuation spectra to transport and optical conductivity, extending Eliashberg's approach for Fermi liquids.

Contribution

It provides a microscopic derivation of hydrodynamic properties in a marginal Fermi liquid, linking fluctuation spectra to transport phenomena and optical conductivity.

Findings

Derived density-density and current-current correlations.

Connected microscopic fluctuation spectra to optical conductivity.

Extended Eliashberg's method for quantum-critical fermion systems.

Abstract

Marginal Fermi liquid was originally introduced as a phenomenological description of the cuprates in a part of the metallic doping range which appears to be governed by fluctuations due to a quantum-critical point. An essential result due to the form of the assumed fluctuation spectra is that the large inelastic quasiparticle relaxation rate near the Fermi-surface is proportional to the energy measured from the chemical potential, $\tau_i^{-1}\propto\epsilon$. We present a microscopic long-wavelength derivation of the hydrodynamic properties in such a situation by an extension of the procedure that Eliashberg used for the derivation of the hydrodynamic properties of a Landau-Fermi-liquid. In particular, the density-density and the current-current correlations and the relation between the two are derived, and the connection to microscopic calculations of the frequency dependence of the optical conductivity with an additional fermi-liquid correction factor shown to follow. The method used here may be necessary, quite generally, for the correct hydrodynamic theory for any problem of quantum-critical fluctuations in fermions.