What are quantum ‘strange metals’ and why are they so strange?

quantum physicists of the Flatiron Institute have finally identified a mechanism that explains the characteristic properties of the so-called ‘strange metals’.

For nearly 40 years, these materials have baffled quantum physicists, defying explanation by operating outside the normal rules of electricity.

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In the journal Science, a team led by Aavishkar Patel presents their universal theory of why strange metals are so strange: a solution to one of the biggest unsolved problems in condensed matter physics.

Strange metallic behavior is found in many quantum materials, including some that, with small changes, can become superconductors (materials in which electrons flow without resistance at sufficiently low temperatures). That relationship suggests that understanding rare metals could help researchers identify new types of superconductivity.

The surprisingly simple new theory explains many oddities about strange metals, such as why the change in electrical resistivity, a measure of the ease with which electrons can flow through the material as electric current, is directly proportional to temperature, even at extremely low temperatures. That relationship means that a foreign metal resists the flow of electrons more than an ordinary metal like gold or copper at the same temperature.

The new theory is based on a combination of two properties of strange metals. First of all, their electrons can be quantum mechanically entangled with one another, linking their fates, and they remain entangled even when separated by a distance. In second place, strange metals have a non-uniform, mosaic-like arrangement of atoms.

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No single property explains the oddities of the strange metals, but taken together, “everything falls into place,” says Patel, who works as a Flatiron Research Fellow at the CCQ (Center for Computational Quantum Physics).

The irregularity of a strange metal’s atomic design means that electron entanglements vary depending on where in the material the entanglement occurred. That variety adds randomness to the momentum of the electrons as they move through the material and interact with each other.. Instead of all flowing together, the electrons hit each other in all directions, resulting in electrical resistance. Since the electrons collide more frequently the more the material is heated, the electrical resistance increases along with the temperature.

“This interplay of entanglement and non-uniformity it’s a new effect; It had never been considered for any material before.”says Patel in a statement. “In retrospect, it is something extremely simple. For a long time, people made this whole weird metal thing unnecessarily complicated, and that wasn’t the right thing to do.”.

Patel says that a better understanding of strange metals could help physicists develop and refine new superconductors for applications such as quantum computers.

“There are cases where something wants to become superconducting but doesn’t quite do so, because the superconductivity is blocked by another competing state.”says. “One might then wonder if the presence of these non-uniformities can destroy these other states that superconductivity competes with and leave the way open for superconductivity.”.

Now that strange metals are a little less strange, the name may seem less fitting than it once did. “I would like to call them unusual metals right now, not strange”says Patel.

Source: Elcomercio

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