From Birefringent Electrons to a Marginal or Non-Fermi Liquid of Relativistic Spin-1/2 Fermions: An Emergent Superuniversality

Abstract

We present the quantum critical theory of an interacting nodal Fermi-liquid of quasi-relativisitc pseudo-spin-3/2 fermions that have a non-interacting birefringent spectrum with two distinct Fermi velocities. When such quasiparticles interact with gapless bosonic degrees of freedom that mediate either the long-range Coulomb interaction or its short range component (responsible for spontaneous symmetry breaking), in the deep infrared or quantum critical regime in two dimensions the system is respectively described by a marginal- or a non-Fermi liquid of relativistic spin-1/2 fermions (possessing a unique velocity), and is always a marginal Fermi liquid in three dimensions. We consider a possible generalization of these scenarios to fermions with an arbitrary half-odd-integer spin, and conjecture that critical spin-1/2 excitations represent a superuniversal description of the entire family of interacting quasi-relativistic fermions.

Published version in PRL: 4.5 Pages, 2 Figures (Supplementary: 6 Pages, Ancillary file)