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The origin of the pseudogap behavior, found in many high-T_csuperconductors, remains one of the greatest puzzles in condensed matter physics. One possible mechanism is fermionic incoherence, which near a quantum critical point allows pair formation but suppresses superconductivity. Employing quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a model of itinerant fermions coupled to ferromagnetic spin fluctuations, represented by a quantum rotor, we report numerical evidence of pseudogap behavior, emerging from pairing fluctuations in a quantum-critical non-Fermi liquid. Specifically, we observe enhanced pairing fluctuations and a partial gap opening in the fermionic spectrum. However, the system remains non-superconducting until reaching a much lower temperature. In the pseudogap regime the system displays a “gap-filling rather than “gap-closing behavior, similar to the one observed in cuprate superconductors. Our results present direct evidence of the pseudogap state, driven by superconducting fluctuations.

 

Abstract The longstanding view of the zero sound mode in a Fermi liquid is that for repulsive interaction it resides outside the particle-hole continuum and gives rise to a sharp peak in the corresponding susceptibility, while for attractive interaction it is a resonance inside the particle-hole continuum. We argue that in a two-dimensional Fermi liquid there exist two additional types of zero sound: “hidden” and “mirage” modes. A hidden mode resides outside the particle-hole continuum already for attractive interaction. It does not appear as a sharp peak in the susceptibility, but determines the long-time transient response of a Fermi liquid and can be identified in pump-probe experiments. A mirage mode emerges for strong enough repulsion. Unlike the conventional zero sound, it does not correspond to a true pole, yet it gives rise to a peak in the particle-hole susceptibility. It can be detected by measuring the width of the peak, which for a mirage mode is larger than the single-particle scattering rate. 

The proximity of many strongly correlated superconductors to density-wave or nematic order has led to an extensive search for fingerprints of pairing mediated by dynamical quantum-critical (QC) fluctuations of the corresponding order parameter. Here we study anisotropics-wave superconductivity induced by anisotropic QC dynamical nematic fluctuations. We solve the non-linear gap equation for the pairing gap$$\Delta (\theta ,{\omega }_{m})$$$\Delta \left(\theta ,{\omega }_m\right)$and show that its angular dependence strongly varies below$${T}_{{\rm{c}}}$$$T_c$. We show that this variation is a signature of QC pairing and comes about because there are multiples-wave pairing instabilities with closely spaced transition temperatures$${T}_{{\rm{c}},n}$$$T_{c,n}$. Taken alone, each instability would produce a gap$$\Delta (\theta ,{\omega }_{m})$$$\Delta \left(\theta ,{\omega }_m\right)$that changes sign$$8n$$$8n$times along the Fermi surface. We show that the equilibrium gap$$\Delta (\theta ,{\omega }_{m})$$$\Delta (\theta ,{\omega }_m)$is a superposition of multiple components that are nonlinearly induced below the actual$${T}_{{\rm{c}}}={T}_{{\rm{c}},0}$$$T_c=T_{c,0}$, and get resonantly enhanced at$$T={T}_{{\rm{c}},n}\ <\ {T}_{{\rm{c}}}$$$T=T_{c,n}<T_c$. This gives rise to strong temperature variation of the angular dependence of$$\Delta (\theta ,{\omega }_{m})$$$\Delta \left(\theta ,{\omega }_m\right)$. This variation progressively disappears away from a QC point.

 

This paper is a short review on the foundations and recent advances in the microscopic Fermi-liquid (FL) theory. We demonstrate that this theory is built on five identities, which follow from conservation of total charge (particle number), spin, and momentum in a translationally and SU(2)-invariant FL. These identities allows one to express the effective mass and quasiparticle residue in terms of an exact vertex function and also impose constraints on the ``quasiparticle'' and ''incoherent" (or ``low-energy'' and ``high-energy'') contributions to the observable quantities. Such constraints forbid certain Pomeranchuk instabilities of a FL, e.g., towards phases with order parameters that coincide with charge and spin currents. We provide diagrammatic derivations of these constraints and of the general (Leggett) formula for the susceptibility in arbitrary angular momentum channel, and illustrate the general relations through simple examples treated in the perturbation theory.