TRANSVERSE GAUGE INTERACTIONS AND THE VANQUISHED FERMI-LIQUID

The interaction between a Fermi liquid and transverse gauge bosons is considered within the framework of the renormalization group. It is shown from an expansion in =3-d, where d is the spatial dimension, that a nontrivial fixed point emerges for dimensions less than three, and that this fixed point signifies a critical Fermi system different from the conventional Landau-Fermi liquid. The dimension d=3 is the upper critical dimension where the correlation functions contain logarithmic corrections; for d>3, the system behaves like a Landau-Fermi liquid. Some of the consequences of this breakdown of Fermi liquid are discussed. © 1995 The American Physical Society.