Pairing Instability in a Nematic Fermi Liquid

Abstract

Nematic Fermi liquid arises when the system of interacting fermions spontaneously breaks the rotational symmetry while the translational symmetry is preserved. We consider a Nematic Fermi liquid of fermions with two distinct quantum numbers. Two quantum numbers represent the spin degrees of freedom or the layer degrees of freedom of the bilayer system. There are two director modes in this system: the in-phase and out-of-phase modes. We find that the out-of-phase (in-phase) mode mediates an attractive (repulsive) interaction between fermions with different quantum numbers. Pairing instability occurs under certain conditions when the in-phase mode is gapped due to a lattice potential. Implications to the stripe phase of Cuprates and the quantum Hall effect of two dimensional electron systems are discussed.