Strange metal at the Lifshitz transition

Abstract

Strange metal behavior is widely observed in cuprates, ruthenates, and twisted bilayer graphene. We study quantum critical transport at a two-dimensional Lifshitz transition, where the Fermi surface hosts a van Hove singularity and changes from convex to concave. Self-consistently solving the fermion-boson coupled system, we demonstrate a linear-in-1/ω optical conductivity driven by the interplay between impurity and critical scattering. The resistivity exhibits a persistent linear-in-T in the quantum critical regime down to T → 0. Spatially fluctuating Yukawa interaction further extends the linear-in-T regime, providing a unified mechanism for strange metallic transport at the Lifshitz transition.