Transport, criticality, and chaos in fermionic quantum matter at nonzero density

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of various aspects of metals with strong interactions between electrons, with a particular emphasis on the problem of charge transport through them. We consider the physics of clean or weakly-disordered metals near some quantum critical points, and highlight novel transport regimes that could be relevant to experiments. We then develop a variety of exactly-solvable lattice models of strongly interacting non-Fermi liquid metals using novel non-perturbative techniques based on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models, and relate their physics to that of the ubiquitous “strange metal” normal state of most correlated-electron superconductors, providing controlled theoretical insight into the possible mechanisms behind it. Finally, we use ideas from the field of quantum chaos to study mathematical quantities that can provide evidence for the existence of quasiparticles (or the lack thereof) in quantum many-body systems, in the context of metals with correlated electrons.