Can electronic quantum criticality drive phonon-induced linear-in-temperature resistivity?

[2603.11176] Can electronic quantum criticality drive phonon-induced linear-in-temperature resistivity? Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Condensed Matter > Strongly Correlated Electrons arXiv:2603.11176 (cond-mat) [Submitted on 11 Mar 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 1 Jun 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Can electronic quantum criticality drive phonon-induced linear-in-temperature resistivity? Authors: Haoyu Guo , Debanjan Chowdhury View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Optical phonons naturally generate linear-in-$T$ resistivity in the high-temperature equipartition regime, but their finite gap prevents this mechanism from surviving to asymptotically low temperatures. Here we analyze whether proximity to an electronic quantum critical point can remove this obstruction by strongly softening an optical phonon. We first derive a model-independent criterion for such softened phonons to control low-temperature transport: besides reducing the renormalized optical gap, the Landau-damped phonon must acquire a dynamical exponent $z_p>d$, where $d$ is the spatial dimension of the phonon, so that a sufficiently large thermally occupied phase space survives as $T\to 0$. We then analyze a concrete mechanism in which the phonon couples nonlinearly to long-wavelength electronic collective modes near a $\vec{Q}=0$ quantum critical point, and apply it to the Ising-nematic case. Within a large-$N$ field theoretic formulation, the phonon softening is enhanced near criticality, but in the clean theory the resulting dynamics lies at or near the marginal boundary for asymptotic $T$-linear scattering. Including feedback from the softened phonon back onto the electronic critical sector further weakens the tendency toward robust low-temperature $T$-linear transport. Our results sharpen both the promise and the limitations of phonon-based explanations of strange-metal transport near electronic criticality. Comments: (v1)48 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; (v2) added clarification Subjects: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) Cite as: arXiv:2603.11176 [cond-mat.str-el] (or arXiv:2603.11176v2 [cond-mat.str-el] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.11176 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Journal reference: SciPost Phys. 21, 047 (2026) Related DOI : https://doi.org/10.21468/SciPostPhys.21.2.047 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Haoyu Guo [ view email ] [v1] Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:00:04 UTC (586 KB) [v2] Mon, 1 Jun 2026 13:39:11 UTC (588 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: cond-mat.str-el < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cond-mat References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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