Interacting fermions : a holographic approach/

Most materials are either metals or insulators. When they are metals, their electronic properties are usually described by Landau's Fermi liquid theory. That is, they behave more or less like a free Fermi gas, with a few modifications due to electron-electron interactions. However, there exist a few metallic materials whose phenomenology does not fit within Fermi liquid theory. These are quasi-2D metals on the verge of becoming insulators, and they happen to become superconducting at low temperature, by a mechanism different than BCS superconductivity. The physics of these materials calls for a new strongly coupled universality class of interacting electrons, yet to be understood. This work looks at the problem from the novel point of view of gauge/gravity, or holographic, duality.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Allais, Andrea

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John McGreevy.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/83828

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/83828