Non-Fermi liquid at the FFLO quantum critical point

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum critical point of the FFLO phase in 2D superconductors under strong magnetic fields, revealing a stable non-Fermi liquid fixed point with potential observable scaling regimes at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a renormalization group analysis of the FFLO quantum phase transition, identifying a new non-Fermi liquid fixed point and exploring its critical properties and competing instabilities.

Findings

Discovery of a stable non-Fermi liquid fixed point.

Potential for observable quantum critical scaling at low temperatures.

Charge density wave order is the dominant competing instability.

Abstract

When a 2D superconductor is subjected to a strong in-plane magnetic field, Zeeman polarization of the Fermi surface can give rise to inhomogeneous FFLO order with a spatially modulated gap. Further increase of the magnetic field eventually drives the system into a normal metal state. Here, we perform a renormalization group analysis of this quantum phase transition, starting from an appropriate low-energy theory recently introduced by Piazza et al. (Ref.1). We compute one-loop flow equations within the controlled dimensional regularization scheme with fixed dimension of Fermi surface, expanding in $\epsilon = 5/2 - d$. We find a new stable non-Fermi liquid fixed point and discuss its critical properties. One of the most interesting aspects of the FFLO non-Fermi liquid scenario is that the quantum critical point is potentially naked, with the scaling regime observable down to arbitrary low temperatures. In order to study this possibility, we perform a general analysis of competing instabilities, which suggests that only charge density wave order is enhanced in the vicinity of the quantum critical point.