Fermi Surface Geometry and Optical Conductivity of a 2D Electron Gas near an Ising-Nematic Quantum Critical Point

Abstract

We analyze optical conductivity of a clean two-dimensional electron system in a Fermi liquid regime near a $T=0$ Ising-nematic quantum critical point (QCP), and extrapolate the results to a QCP. We employ direct perturbation theory up to the two-loop order to elucidate how the Fermi surface's geometry (convex vs. concave) and fermionic dispersion (parabolic vs. non-parabolic) affect the scaling of the optical conductivity, $\sigma(\omega)$, with frequency $\omega$ and correlation length $\xi$. We find that for a convex Fermi surface the leading terms in the optical conductivity cancel out, leaving a sub-leading contribution $\sigma (\omega) \propto \omega^2 \xi^4 \mathcal{L}$, where $\mathcal{L} = \mathrm{const}$ for a parabolic dispersion and $\mathcal{L} \propto \log{\omega \xi^3}$ in a generic case. For a concave Fermi surface, the leading terms do not cancel, and $\sigma (\omega) \propto \xi^2$. We extrapolate these results to a QCP and obtain $\sigma (\omega) \propto \omega^{2/3}$ for a convex Fermi surface and $\sigma (\omega) \propto 1/\omega^{2/3}$ for a concave Fermi surface.