Plasmons in a layered strange metal using the gauge-gravity duality

ST van den Eede, TJN van Stralen, CFJ Flipse, HTC Stoof*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In an attempt to understand the density-density response of the cuprate superconductors, we study plasmons in
a layered strange metal using the Gubser-Rocha model. The latter is a well-known bottom-up holographic model
for a strange metal that is used here to describe the strongly repulsive on-site interactions between the electrons
in each copper-oxide (CuO2) layer, whereas the long-range Coulomb interactions are incorporated by a so-called
double-trace deformation. To be able to model the bilayer cuprates more realistically, we consider in particular
the case of two closely spaced CuO2 layers per unit cell. In the response we then obtain for vanishing out-of-plane
momentum both an optical and an acoustic plasmon, whereas for nonvanishing out-of-plane momentum there
are two acoustic plasmon modes. We present the full density-density spectral functions with parameters typical
for cuprates and discuss both the dispersion and the lifetime of these plasmon excitations. Moreover, we compute
the conductivity after introducing disorder into the system. Finally, we also compute the loss function to facilitate
a comparison with experimental results from electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
Original languageEnglish
Article number085119
Number of pages15
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume109
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 Feb 2024

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