RQMP (CPM) Seminar

Electrons with Planckian Scattering in the Strange Metal Phase of Cuprate Superconductors

Amirreza Ataei

Université de Sherbrooke

In various so-called strange metals, electrons undergo Planckian dissipation, a strong and anomalous scattering that grows linearly with temperature, in contrast to the quadratic temperature dependence expected from the standard theory of metals. In some cuprates and pnictides, a linear dependence of the resistivity on magnetic field has also been considered anomalous - possibly an additional facet of Planckian dissipation.

In our recent work [1], we show that the resistivity of the cuprate strange metals Nd-LSCO and LSCO, is quantitatively consistent with the standard Boltzmann theory of electron motion in a magnetic field, in all aspects - field strength, field direction, temperature, and disorder level. The linear field dependence is found to be the consequence of scattering rate anisotropy. We conclude that Planckian dissipation is anomalous in its temperature dependence but not in its field dependence. The scattering rate in these cuprates does not depend on field, which means their Planckian dissipation is robust against fields up to at least 85 T.

[1] Ataei et al., Electrons with Planckian scattering obey standard orbital motion in a magnetic field, Nature Physics 18, 1420­1424 (2022)