Strange metal behavior from incoherent carriers scattered by local moments

Abstract: We study metallic transport in an effective model that describes the coupling of electrons to fluctuating magnetic moments with full SU(2) symmetry, exhibiting characteristic behavior of metals at the approach of the Mott transition. We show that scattering by fluctuating local moments causes a fully incoherent regime of electron transport with linear T-dependent resistivities. This strange metal regime is characterized by almost universal, "Planckian" slope and a finite intercept at $T=0$, that we can associate respectively to the fluctuations in orientation and amplitude of the local moments. Our results indicate a route for understanding the microscopic origin of strange metal behavior that is unrelated to quantum criticality and does not rely on the existence of quasiparticles.