Nearly frozen Coulomb Liquids

TL;DR

This paper investigates how long-range Coulomb-like interactions induce frustration and lead to a fragile, nearly frozen liquid state with a pseudogap phase exhibiting weak temperature dependence, relevant to low carrier density systems.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework showing that long-range interactions cause extreme frustration and a pseudogap phase with unique transport properties in Coulomb liquids.

Findings

Long-range interactions induce strong frustration.

A broad pseudogap phase exists above the melting temperature.

Transport remains weakly temperature dependent in the pseudogap phase.

Abstract

We show that very long range repulsive interactions of a generalized Coulomb-like form $V(R)\sim R^{-\alpha}$, with $\alpha<d$ ($d$-dimensionality), typically introduce very strong frustration, resulting in extreme fragility of the charge-ordered state. An \textquotedbl{}almost frozen\textquotedbl{} liquid then survives in a broad dynamical range above the (very low) melting temperature $T_{c}$ which is proportional to $\alpha$. This \textquotedbl{}pseudogap\textquotedbl{} phase is characterized by unusual insulating-like, but very weakly temperature dependent transport, similar to experimental findings in certain low carrier density systems.