Skewed Non-Fermi Liquids and the Seebeck Effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how particle-hole asymmetry in non-Fermi liquids affects thermopower at low temperatures, providing insights into the anomalous thermoelectric behavior observed in cuprate strange metals.

Contribution

It demonstrates that intrinsic particle-hole asymmetry influences thermopower in non-Fermi liquids, unlike in Fermi liquids, with implications for understanding cuprate strange metal behavior.

Findings

Particle-hole asymmetry affects thermopower at low temperatures.

Implications for sign and temperature dependence of thermopower in cuprates.

Relevance to Planckian regime in strange metals.

Abstract

We consider non-Fermi liquids in which the inelastic scattering rate has an intrinsic particle-hole asymmetry and obeys $\omega/T$ scaling. We show that, in contrast to Fermi liquids, this asymmetry influences the low-temperature behaviour of the thermopower even in the presence of impurity scattering. Implications for the unconventional sign and temperature dependence of the thermopower in cuprates in the strange metal (Planckian) regime are emphasized.