Thursday, April 26, 2012

Strange metal. Strange insulator. Strange material.

Jaime Merino and I just finished a paper Effective Hamiltonian for the electronic properties of the quasi-one-dimensional material Li0.9Mo6O17

This is a really strange and interesting material. It has featured in earlier posts. We discuss how the observed properties of both the "metallic" phase and the "insulating" phase are quite unusual and don't seem to fit into any "standard" picture [Fermi liquid, Luttinger liquid, quantum critical, ...]. We then propose the simplest possible lattice model Hamiltonian that might capture its properties. This is worthy of further study.

We thank Nigel Hussey for getting us interested in this fascinating material. He has a forthcoming PRL about the unconventional (possibly triplet) superconductivity.

Comments welcome.

1 comment:

  1. It has offered in prior posts. We talk over how the watched lands of both the "metallic" stage and the "encasing" stage are very steel plate cutting bizarre and don't appear to fit into any "standard" picture [fermi fluid, Luttinger fluid, quantum discriminating,

    ReplyDelete

A very effective Hamiltonian in nuclear physics

Atomic nuclei are complex quantum many-body systems. Effective theories have helped provide a better understanding of them. The best-known a...