Effective Soft-Mode Theory of Strongly Interacting Fermions

Abstract: An effective field theory for clean electron systems is developed in analogy to the generalized nonlinear sigma-model for disordered interacting electrons. The physical goal is to separate the soft or massless electronic degrees of freedom from the massive ones and integrate out the latter to obtain a field theory in terms of the soft degrees of freedom only. The resulting theory is not perturbative with respect to the electron-electron interaction. It is controlled by means of a systematic loop expansion and allows for a renormalization-group analysis in a natural way. It is applicable to universal phenomena within phases, and to transitions between phases, with order parameters in arbitrary angular-momentum channels, and in the spin-singlet, spin-triplet, particle-hole, and particle-particle channels. Applications include ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic ordering, non-s-wave ferromagnetic order (magnetic nematics), Fermi-liquid to non-Fermi-liquid transitions, and universal phenomena within a Fermi-liquid phase.