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Intermediate-scale theory for electrons coupled to frustrated local moments

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

A.J. McRoberts
J.F. Méndez-Valderrama
R. Moessner
Debanjan Chowdhury

Abstract

A classic route for destroying long-lived electronic quasiparticles in a weakly interacting Fermi liquid is to couple them to other low-energy degrees of freedom that effectively act as a bath. We consider here the problem of electrons scattering off the spin fluctuations of a geometrically frustrated antiferromagnet, whose nonlinear Landau-Lifshitz dynamics, which remains nontrivial at all temperatures, we model in detail. At intermediate temperatures and in the absence of any magnetic ordering, the fluctuating local moments lead to a nontrivial angular anisotropy of the scattering rate along the Fermi surface, which disappears with increasing temperature, elucidating the role of "hot spots."Over a remarkably broad window of intermediate and high temperatures, the electronic properties can be described by employing a local approximation for the dynamical spin response. This we contrast with the more familiar setup of electrons scattering off classical phonons, whose high-temperature limit differs fundamentally on account of their unbounded Hilbert space. We place our results in the context of layered magnetic delafossite compounds. © 2023 American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review B

Volume

107

Issue

2

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85146319819&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevB.107.L020402&partnerID=40&md5=067505f0e81c667cc7682508fe459304

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L020402

Group (Lab)

Debanjan Chowdhury Group

Funding Source

247310070
390858490
EXC 2147
SFB 1143

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