Drude theory in Reissner-Nordström and Gubser-Rocha holographic strange metals

Since the 80s, strange metals, metals where the electrons are so densely entangled that the conventional condensed matter paradigm of Short Ranged Entanglement fails, have eluded any form of study due to the sign problem, which renders numerical calculations impossible. However, holography, a duality between strongly coupled quantum field theory problems and classical general relativity problems of one spatial dimension higher, grants us a way to circumvent the sign problem. In this thesis, we will run a modified version of code that was once used to simulate binary black holes on a supercomputer to calculate the properties of two $2+1$-dimensional holographic models for strange metals, the Reissner-Nordstr\"om metal and the Gubser-Rocha metal, subject to an ionic lattice potential: the code needed to simulate the Gubser-Rocha metal was only finished last year. We then investigate whether the DC electrical conductivity $\sigma$, thermopower $\alpha$ and thermal conductivity $\bar{...Show moreSince the 80s, strange metals, metals where the electrons are so densely entangled that the conventional condensed matter paradigm of Short Ranged Entanglement fails, have eluded any form of study due to the sign problem, which renders numerical calculations impossible. However, holography, a duality between strongly coupled quantum field theory problems and classical general relativity problems of one spatial dimension higher, grants us a way to circumvent the sign problem. In this thesis, we will run a modified version of code that was once used to simulate binary black holes on a supercomputer to calculate the properties of two $2+1$-dimensional holographic models for strange metals, the Reissner-Nordstr\"om metal and the Gubser-Rocha metal, subject to an ionic lattice potential: the code needed to simulate the Gubser-Rocha metal was only finished last year. We then investigate whether the DC electrical conductivity $\sigma$, thermopower $\alpha$ and thermal conductivity $\bar{\kappa}$ obey four different Drude models: one basic relativistic model and three models with different extra incoherent terms, models A, B and C. We find that model A, the most conventional model, fails, while the conductivities obey model C ($\kappa$-dominated transport) for low lattice strength $A$ and model B ($\sigma_{Q=0}$-dominated transport) for high $A$. We suspect this surprising result is caused by a pole collision causing a crossover between two regimes, but more research needs to be done to verify this.Show less

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Drude theory in Reissner-Nordström and Gubser-Rocha holographic strange metals