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Abstract In various so-called strange metals, electrons undergo Planckian dissipation 1,2 , a strong and anomalous scattering that grows linearly with temperature 3 , in contrast to the quadratic temperature dependence expected from the standard theory of metals. In some cuprates 4,5 and pnictides 6 , a linear dependence of resistivity on a magnetic field has also been considered anomalous—possibly an additional facet of Planckian dissipation. Here we show that the resistivity of the cuprate strange metals Nd 0.4 La 1.6− x Sr x CuO 4 (ref. 7 ) and La 2− x Sr x CuO 4 (ref. 8 ) is quantitatively consistent with the standard Boltzmann theory of electron motion in a magnetic field, in all aspects—field strength, field direction, temperature and disorder level. The linear field dependence is found to be simply the consequence of scattering rate anisotropy. We conclude that Planckian dissipation is anomalous in its temperature dependence, but not in its field dependence. The scattering rate in these cuprates does not depend on field, which means that their Planckian dissipation is robust against fields up to at least 85 T.
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A stability bound on the T-linear resistivity of conventional metals
Perturbative considerations account for the properties of conventional metals, including the range of temperatures where the transport scattering rate is 1/ τ tr = 2 π λ T , where λ is a dimensionless strength of the electron–phonon coupling. The fact that measured values satisfy λ ≲ 1 has been noted in the context of a possible “Planckian” bound on transport. However, since the electron–phonon scattering is quasielastic in this regime, no such Planckian considerations can be relevant. We present and analyze Monte Carlo results on the Holstein model which show that a different sort of bound is at play: a “stability” bound on λ consistent with metallic transport. We conjecture that a qualitatively similar bound on the strength of residual interactions, which is often stronger than Planckian, may apply to metals more generally.
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- PAR ID:
- 10412888
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 120
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0027-8424
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216241120
