A candidate Theory for the "Strange Metal" phase at Finite Energy Window

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lattice electron model inspired by tensor models that captures key features of the strange metal phase in cuprates, including linear resistivity and pairing instabilities, without requiring disorder.

Contribution

The model is a novel, non-random, local interaction lattice model based on tetrahedron tensor physics, explaining strange metal phenomenology with analytical solvability.

Findings

Linear temperature dependence of resistivity in the solvable limit.

Presence of fermion pairing instability leading to superconductivity or pseudogap.

Model's compatibility with symmetries and single orbital per site.

Abstract

We propose a lattice model for strongly interacting electrons with the potential to explain the main phenomenology of the strange metal phase in the cuprate high temperature superconductors. Our model is motivated by the recently developed "tetrahedron" rank-3 tensor model that mimics much of the physics of the better-known Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. Our electron model has the following advantageous properties: (1) it only needs one orbital per site on the square lattice; (2) it does not require any quenched random interaction; (3) it has local interactions and respects all the symmetries of the system; (4) the soluble limit of this model has a longitudinal DC resistivity that scales linearly with temperature within a finite temperature window; (5) again the soluble limit of this model has a fermion pairing instability in the infrared, which can lead to either superconductivity or a "pseudogap" phase. The linear$-T$ longitudinal resistivity and the pairing instability originate from the generic scaling feature of the SYK model and the tetrahedron tensor model.