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# QED3 theory of pairing pseudogap in cuprates: From d-wave superconductor to antiferromagnet via “algebraic” Fermi liquid

## I Introduction

In the classic tradition of condensed matter physics, the phenomenon of superconductivity is usually described as an instability of a normal metal towards a quantum state in which electrons bind into Cooper pairs bcs . This traditional picture, further fortified within the Eliashberg formalism eliashberg , has met with spectacular success when applied to conventional, low $`T_c`$-superconductors. This success is no accident: the BCS-Eliashberg theory uses the Landau theory of Fermi liquids as the underlying description of a normal metal. In turn, the Landau theory of Fermi liquids is one of the most successful theories in physics – by starting from the free gas of fermions it exploits the constraint on the phase space imposed by the Pauli exclusion principle to provide a comprehensive understanding of a low energy behavior of an interacting system. Among its many pleasing features, the Landau theory allows for methodical understanding of the seeds of its own destruction – while Fermi liquid is hardly the true ground state of any system, kohn1  we routinely seek to understand such ground states by investigating various instabilities of the Fermi liquid (FL) description, either in the particle-hole or particle-particle channel, few notable examples being spin- and charge-density waves, itinerant ferromagnetism and, of course, superconductivity. This remarkable success story of the BCS-Eliashberg-FL theory gave birth to the traditional paradigm: “one must understand the normal state before one can understand the superconductor” anderson ; pines .

The discovery of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors (HTS) and the subsequent efforts to decipher their mysteries altered the above state of affairs dramatically. As experimental information began to pour in, it became rapidly clear that HTS depart qualitatively from the BCS-Eliashberg-FL orthodoxy in at least three important ways. First, the high-$`T_c`$ superconducting copper oxides are strongly interacting systems in which correlations play an essential role. Their parent compounds, believed to contain one hole per copper within CuO2 layers, are far from good metals that the simple band-structure theory would predict and are instead insulating Neel antiferromagnets. Even when doped and the long range antiferromagnetic order had subsided, these materials do not seem to follow the dictates of the Fermi liquid theory, except perhaps in the heavily overdoped regime. Rather, the “normal” metal state of the cuprates is anything but, and has been routinely dubbed “anomalous” or “strange”. In line with the traditional paradigm, a major theoretical effort, mainly inspired by Anderson anderson , has been directed at first understanding this anomalous “normal” state as arising from the Hubbard-Mott-Neel antiferromagnetic insulator at half-filling once a small density of mobile dopant holes has been induced in the CuO2 layers. The physics of such “doped Mott insulator” and particularly the microscopic mechanism through which the high temperature superconductivity itself is generated from within such a “normal” state, even after years of concentrated theoretical and experimental onslaught, remain a deep challenge to the condensed matter physics community.

The second departure from the BCS-Eliashberg-FL orthodoxy departure  has by now been firmly established experimentally: the superconducting state in cuprates is itself of unconventional symmetry kirtley . Instead of a usual “s-wave” gap function whose magnitude generally varies over the Fermi surface but whose sign does not, the cuprates are “d-wave” superconductors. It is believed at the present time that this d-wave symmetry reflects the presence of correlations caused by strong on-site repulsion and is thus a close dynamical relative of the antiferromagnetic state at half-filling. Majority of authors have focused on such purely electronic “mechanism” of superconductivity arising from strong correlations in sharp distinction to the phonon-mediated pairing of the traditional BCS-Eliashberg approach. Such unconventional symmetry of the superconducting state and the ensuing presence of low-energy fermionic excitations near the gap nodes result in a rich phenomenology of cuprates. Most remarkably, however, this phenomenology, at low energies and temperatures and deep inside the superconducting state, seems to fit within the theoretical mold of a model BCS-like d-wave superconductor, quite separately from the detailed microscopic mechanism that is at its origin. We consider this an experimental fact of crucial significance which for the rest of this paper we intend to fully exploit to our advantage.

Finally, more than the intrinsic gap symmetry distinguishes HTS from their conventional kin. They are also strongly fluctuating systems emerykivelson . While strong fluctuations away from a simple mean-field description are familiar occurrence in magnets or liquid crystals they are a relatively novel phenomenon in superconductors. In most conventional superconductors, well-described by the BCS-Eliashberg-FL theory, the fluctuations are simply not an issue: the dimensionless parameter which controls the deviations from the mean-field theory, the inverse of the product of the BCS coherence length $`\xi _0`$ and the Fermi wavevector $`k_F`$, is typically as small as $`10^3`$ or $`10^4`$ and the fluctuation effects are rarely observable tinkham . In contrast, early experiments on HTS clearly established strong fluctuations in numerous physical quantities and various estimates put $`(1/\xi _0k_F)10^1`$ or larger. The strongly fluctuating nature of the superconducting state is particularly pronounced in underdoped cuprates and is rather vividly manifested in recent experiments on Nernst effect by the Princeton group ong . The Nernst effect is routinely used to detect superconducting vortex fluctuations and a strong signal observed up to $`T_{\mathrm{Nernst}}T_c`$, with $`T_{\mathrm{Nernst}}`$ comparable to the pseudogap temperature $`T^{}`$, is most naturally interpreted in those terms. Other experiments have also provided both direct corson  and indirect fischer  support for the pairing fluctuations far above $`T_c`$. The experimental evidence for such fluctuations has been compiled in Ref. oda .

Recently, a different path toward the theory of HTS was proposed in Refs. nodalliquid ; ftqed . A key aspect of this “inverted” approach is the observation that, when compared to its neighbors in the phase diagram of cuprates, the superconducting state appears to be the “least correlated” and its fermionic excitations best defined ftqed . A tantalizing theoretical feature of this approach is that it holds promise to turn the above triple predicament of strong correlations, fluctuations and unconventional symmetry in HTS into an advantage by using the superconducting state as its departure point. The first step in constructing a theory based on this “inverted” philosophy is to assume that the most important effect of strong correlations at the basic microscopic level is to build a large pseudogap of d-wave symmetry, which is predominantly pairing in origin, i.e. arises form the particle-particle (p-p) channel. In this regard, we are following the wisdom of the FL theory but are replacing the free electron gas starting point with the free Bogoliubov-deGennes (BdG) d-wave quasiparticles. Under the umbrella of this large d-wave pseudogap, the low energy fermionic excitations enjoy remarkably sheltered existence. They are completely impervious to weak residual short range interactions left over after the effect of the pseudogap had been built in.

There is an important new element in this parallel with the FL. Our reference state being a superconductor, we must also consider interactions of BdG quasiparticles with relevant collective modes of the pairing pseudogap, i.e. fluctuating thermal and quantum vortex-antivortex pairs. Within the theory of Ref. ftqed  this interaction is represented by two U(1) gauge fields, $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$. $`v_\mu `$ describes Doppler shift in quasiparticle energies volovik  and has been studied in Refs. franzmillis ; dorsey . Its effect on low energy fermions is rather modest since $`v_\mu `$ gains mass from fermions both in a superconductor and in a phase-incoherent pseudogap state. In contrast, the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$, minimally coupled to fermions and encoding the topological frustration inflicted upon BdG quasiparticles by fluctuating vortices, is massless in the pseudogap state and is the main source of strong scattering at low energies ftqed . The effective theory was found to take the form equivalent to (2+1)-dimensional (anisotropic) quantum electrodynamics (QED3) ftqed . In its symmetric phase, QED3 is governed by the interacting critical point leading to a non-Fermi liquid behavior for its fermionic excitations. This “algebraic” Fermi liquid (AFL) ftqed  displaces conventional FL as the underlying theory of the pseudogap state.

The AFL (symmetric QED3) suffers an intrinsic instability when vortex-antivortex fluctuations and residual interactions become too strong. The topological frustration is relieved by the spontaneous generation of mass for fermions, while the Berry gauge field remains massless. In the field theory literature on QED3 this instability is known as the dynamical chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) and is a well-studied and established phenomenon csb , although few clouds of uncertainty still hover over its more quantitative aspects appelquist . In cuprates, the region of such strong vortex fluctuations corresponds to heavily underdoped samples and the CSB leads to spontaneous creation of a whole plethora of nearly degenerate ordered and gapped states from within the AFL tvfqed . An important check on the internal consistency of the “inverted” approach is that the manifold of CSB states contains an incommensurate antiferromagnetic insulator (spin-density wave (SDW)) herbut1 ; tvfqed . Remarkably, both the “algebraic” Fermi liquid and the SDW and other CSB insulating states arise from the one and the same QED3 theory ftqed , echoing the satisfying features of Fermi liquid theory in conventional metals. It therefore appears that the “inverted” approach can be used to advance along the doping axis of the HTS phase diagram (Fig. 1) in the “opposite” direction, from a d-wave superconductor all the way to an antiferromagnetic insulator at very low doping, the low energy physics held under overall control of the symmetric QED3 (AFL).

In this paper we first present a detailed derivation of the QED3 theory of the pairing pseudogap state in underdoped cuprates previously introduced in Ref. ftqed  and then embark on a systematic exploration of its fermionic excitation spectrum and other related properties. To keep the paper at manageable length we confine ourselves to the the chirally symmetric phase of QED3, i.e. to the algebraic Fermi liquid (AFL) and its main properties. The chiral symmetry broken phase is discussed separately, in Part II of this paper. Section II and Appendix A contain a step-by-step manual on vortex-quasiparticle interactions and how the low-energy physics of such interactions can be given its mathematical formulation in the language of the QED3 effective theory. In Sections III and IV we focus on the AFL, give a detailed accounting of vortex-quasiparticle interactions within QED3 and compute quasiparticle spectral properties within the pseudogap symmetric phase. In Section V we then discuss the effects of Dirac anisotropy on the QED3 infrared fixed point and demonstrate that, to leading order in $`1/N`$-expansion, the anisotropic QED3 scales to an isotropic limit. Finally, we present a brief summary of our results and conclusions in Section VI.

In Part II of the paper, to appear separately, we introduce the concept of chiral symmetry within the d-wave pairing pseudogap state herbut1 ; tvfqed . We enumerate different physical states within the chiral manifold and discuss in depth various patterns of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) (Fig. 1) and fermion mass generation within our QED3 theory. This is followed by the applications to the phase diagram of cuprates within the pseudogap state.

## II Preliminaries and vortex-quasiparticle interactions

### II.1 Protectorate of the pairing pseudogap

Our starting point is the assumption that the pseudogap is predominantly particle-particle or pairing (p-p) in origin and that it has a d$`_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry. This assumption is given mathematical expression in the partition function:

$`Z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(𝐫,\tau )𝒟\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐫,\tau )𝒟\phi (𝐫,\tau )\mathrm{exp}[S]},`$
$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\tau d^2r\{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_\tau \mathrm{\Psi }+\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\mathrm{\Psi }+(1/g)\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\}},`$ (1)
where $`\tau `$ is the imaginary time, $`𝐫=(x,y)`$, $`g`$ is an effective coupling constant in the d$`_{x^2y^2}`$ channel, and $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}=(\overline{\psi }_{},\psi _{})`$ are the standard Grassmann variables. The effective Hamiltonian $``$ is given by:

$$=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{}_e& \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}\\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}& \widehat{}_e^{}\end{array}\right)+_{\mathrm{res}}$$
(2)
with $`\widehat{}_e=\frac{1}{2m}(\widehat{𝐩}\frac{e}{c}𝐀)^2ϵ_F`$, $`\widehat{𝐩}=i`$ (we take $`\mathrm{}=1`$), and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ the $`d`$-wave pairing operator ft ; ft2 ,

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}=\frac{1}{k_F^2}\{\widehat{p}_x,\{\widehat{p}_y,\mathrm{\Delta }\}\}\frac{i}{4k_F^2}\mathrm{\Delta }\left(_x_y\phi \right),$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,\tau )=|\mathrm{\Delta }|\mathrm{exp}(i\phi (𝐫,\tau ))`$ is the center-of-mass gap function and $`\{a,b\}(ab+ba)/2`$. As discussed in Ref. ft2  the second term in Eq. (3) is necessary to preserve the overall gauge invariance. Notice that we have rotated $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ from d$`_{x^2y^2}`$ to dxy to simplify the continuum limit. $`𝒟\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$ denotes the integral over smooth (“spin wave”) and singular (vortex) phase fluctuations. Amplitude fluctuations of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ are suppressed at or just below $`T^{}`$ and the amplitude itself is frozen at $`2\mathrm{\Delta }3.56T^{}`$ for $`TT^{}`$.

The fermion fields $`\psi _{}`$ and $`\psi _{}`$ appearing in Eqs. (1,2) do not necessarily refer to the bare electrons. Rather, they represent some effective low-energy fermions of the theory, already fully renormalized by high-energy interactions, expected to be strong in cuprates due to Mott-Hubbard correlations near half-filling anderson . The precise structure of such fermionic effective fields follows from a more microscopic theory and is not of our immediate concern here – we are only relying on the absence of true spin-charge separation which allows us to write the effective pairing term (2) in the BCS-like form. The experimental evidence that supports this reasoning, at least within the superconducting state and its immediate vicinity, is rather overwhelming ong ; corson ; fischer ; oda . Furthermore, $`_{\mathrm{res}}`$ represents the “residual” interactions, i.e. the part dominated by the effective interactions in the p-h channel. Our main assumption is equivalent to stating that such interactions are in a certain sense “weak” and less important part of the effective Hamiltonian $``$ than the large pairing interactions already incorporated through $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$. As we progress, this notion of “weakness” of $`_{\mathrm{res}}`$ will be defined more precisely and with it the region of validity of our theory.

The above discussion reveals that our theory is at least partly of phenomenological character and it must rely on a more microscopic description to fully define its basic form specified by Eqs. (1,2). While it is still far from established just what such more microscopic description might be in the case of cuprates, various gauge theories of the $`tJ`$ and related models palee , could all be used for this purpose at the present time. The main role played by such theories is providing reliable values of parameters that feed into the basic formulation (1,2). These include, most importantly, the pairing pseudogap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ itself, the microscopic values of vortex core energies, the strengths of residual interactions, etc. Once these parameters have been supplied through such an external input it is our task to solve for the low energy ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$), long distance physics of (1,2). At present, these needed parameters cannot be computed reliably from a fully microscopic approach. We therefore combine the available theoretical arguments with the experimentally determined phase diagram (Fig. 1) and argue that the pseudogap is indeed pairing in origin and that the transition from the superconductor to the pseudogap state must proceed via thermal and quantum unbinding of vortex-antivortex pairs.

Our “inverted” approach is similar in spirit to the Landau theory of Fermi liquids as applied to conventional metals. In Fermi liquid (FL) theory the reference state is that of a non-interacting gas of fermions. As the interactions are turned on adiabatically, the Pauli principle severely restricts the available phase space for scattering and many of the general features of free fermion system are preserved, albeit in a renormalized form pines . In our case, the reference state is a non-interacting system of Bogoliubov-deGennes (BdG) fermions. One can think of the pairing pseudogap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as being our “Fermi energy” and the highest energy scale in the problem. While our theory cannot account for the physics at energies (or temperatures) higher than $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we will endevour to show that the low energy physics can be computed systematically and is parametrized by a handful of material constants whose values can be extracted either from experiments or from a more microscopic theory.

In this context, the residual interactions among the BdG fermions, both those arising from the p-p channel through weak amplitude fluctuations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and the p-h interactions generated by the effective spin fluctuations within the pseudogap state nodalliquid , can be thought of as our version of “Landau interaction parameters” $`\{F_{2\mathrm{}+1}^{s,a}\}`$. These interactions are generically short-ranged and are even less effective in disturbing the coherence of nodal BdG fermions than their FL counterpart. With all of the Fermi surface gapped apart from the nodal regions, such interactions are irrelevant in the renormalization group (RG) sense and can be absorbed into renormalizations of various relevant parameters (more on this in Section III). As the system makes the transition from a phase-coherent superconductor to a phase-incoherent pseudogap state, the nodal BdG fermions interacting only through such residual interactions would hardly notice – the nodal BdG liquid is a better Fermi liquid than the original.

There is, however, another source of interactions among BdG quasiparticles which ruins this happy state of affairs. Our reference state being a superconductor, we must consider the interactions of BdG fermions with collective modes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ relevant near the superconductor-“normal” boundary, i.e. fluctuating vortices. As we demonstrate next, these interactions between BdG quasiparticles and fluctuating vortex-antivortex excitations play the central dynamical role in our theory.

### II.2 Phase fluctuations, vortices, quasiparticles and topological frustration

The global U(1) gauge invariance mandates that the partition function (1) must be independent of the overall choice of phase for $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$. We should therefore aim to eliminate the phase $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$ from the pairing term (2) in favor of $`_\mu \phi `$ terms \[$`\mu =(x,y,\tau )`$\] in the fermionic action. For the regular (“spin-wave”) piece of $`\phi `$ this is easily accomplished by absorbing a phase factor $`\mathrm{exp}(i\frac{1}{2}\phi )`$ into both spin-up and spin-down fermionic fields. This amounts to “screening” the phase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,\tau )`$ (or an “XY phase”, as commonly known) by a “half-phase” field (or “half-XY phase”) attached to $`\psi _{}`$ and $`\psi _{}`$. However, as discussed in Ref. ft ; ft2 , when dealing with the singular part of $`\phi `$, such transformation “screens” physical singly quantized $`hc/2e`$ superconducting vortices with “half-vortices” in the fermionic fields. Consequently, this “half-angle” gauge transformation must be accompanied by branch cuts in the fermionic fields which originate and terminate at vortex positions and across which the quasiparticle wavefunction must switch its sign. These branch cuts are mathematical manifestation of a fundamental physical effect: in presence of vortices, which are topological defects in the phase of the Cooper pair field and thus naturally bind the elementary flux of $`hc/2e`$, the motion of quasiparticles is topologically frustrated, since their natural elementary flux is twice as large ($`hc/e`$). The physics of this topological frustration is at the origin of all non-trivial dynamics discussed in this paper.

Dealing with branch cuts in a fluctuating vortex problem is a rather cumbersome affair due to their non-local character and defeats the original purpose of reducing the problem to that of fermions interacting with local fluctuating superflow field, i.e. with $`_\mu \phi `$. Instead, in order to avoid the branch cuts, non-locality and non-single valued wavefunctions, we employ the singular gauge transformation devised in Ref. ft , hereafter referred to as ‘FT’ transformation:

$$\overline{\psi }_{}\mathrm{exp}(i\phi _A)\overline{\psi }_{},\overline{\psi }_{}\mathrm{exp}(i\phi _B)\overline{\psi }_{},$$
(4)
where $`\phi _A+\phi _B=\phi `$. Here $`\phi _{A(B)}`$ is the singular part of the phase due to $`A(B)`$ vortex defects:

$$\times \phi _{A(B)}=2\pi \widehat{z}\underset{i}{}q_i\delta \left(𝐫𝐫_i^{A(B)}(\tau )\right),$$
(5)
with $`q_i=\pm 1`$ denoting the topological charge of $`i`$-th vortex and $`𝐫_i^{A(B)}(\tau )`$ its position. The labels $`A`$ and $`B`$ represent some convenient but otherwise arbitrary division of vortex defects (loops or lines in $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$) into two sets, although we will soon discuss many virtues of the symmetrized transformation (4) which apportions vortex defects equally between sets $`A`$ and $`B`$ ft ; ft2 . The transformation (4) “screens” the original superconducting phase $`\phi `$ (or “XY phase”) with two ordinary “XY phases” $`\phi _A`$ and $`\phi _B`$ attached to fermions. Both $`\phi _A`$ and $`\phi _B`$ are themselves perfectly legitimate phase configurations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,\tau )`$ but simply with fewer vortex defects. The key feature of the transformation (4) is that it accomplishes “screening” of the physical $`hc/2e`$ vortices by using only “whole” (i.e., not “halved”) vortices in fermionic fields and thus guarantees that the quasiparticle wavefunctions remain single-valued. The topological frustration still remains, being the genuine physical effect of the branch cuts, but is now incorporated directly into the fermionic part of the action:

$$^{}=\overline{\psi }_{}[_\tau +i(_\tau \phi _A)]\psi _{}+\overline{\psi }_{}[_\tau +i(_\tau \phi _B)]\psi _{}+\mathrm{\Psi }^{}^{}\mathrm{\Psi },$$
(6)
where the transformed Hamiltonian $`^{}`$ is:

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2m}(\widehat{\pi }+𝐯)^2ϵ_F& \widehat{D}\\ \widehat{D}& \frac{1}{2m}(\widehat{\pi }𝐯)^2+ϵ_F\end{array}\right),$$

with $`\widehat{D}=(\mathrm{\Delta }_0/2k_F^2)(\widehat{\pi }_x\widehat{\pi }_y+\widehat{\pi }_y\widehat{\pi }_x)`$ and $`\widehat{\pi }=\widehat{𝐩}+𝐚`$.

The singular gauge transformation (4) generates a “Berry” gauge potential

$$a_\mu =\frac{1}{2}(_\mu \phi _A_\mu \phi _B),$$
(7)
which describes half-flux Aharonov-Bohm scattering of quasiparticles on vortices. $`a_\mu `$ couples to BdG fermions minimally and mimics the effect of branch cuts in quasiparticle-vortex dynamics ft ; ft2 ; marinelli . Closed fermion loops in the Feynman path-integral representation of (1) acquire the ($`1`$) phase factors due to this half-flux Aharonov-Bohm effect just as they would from a branch cut attached to a vortex defect. The topological frustration is now implemented through the fact that $`_\mu \phi _{A(B)}`$, minimally coupled to a loop of BdG fermions in the partition function (1) as it winds around the imaginary time direction, generates the phase equal to the advance in the XY phase $`\phi _{A(B)}(𝐫,\tau )`$, which inhabits the same spacetime, along the closed path coinciding with the said fermion loop. Naturally, this advance must be an integer multiple of $`2\pi `$ – the overall factor of $`\frac{1}{2}`$ in the definition of $`a_\mu `$ (7) reduces this further to an integer multiple of $`\pi `$. In the end, the phase factors of such fermion loops, which are the gauge invariant quantities, are all equal to $`\pm 1`$ and are furthermore precisely what we would have obtained had we opted for the “half-angle” gauge transformation and implemented the branch cuts.

The above $`(\pm 1)`$ prefactors of the BdG fermion loops come on top of general and everpresent U(1) phase factors $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta )`$, where the phase $`\delta `$ depends on spacetime configuration of vortices. These U(1) phase factors are supplied by the “Doppler” gauge field

$$v_\mu =\frac{1}{2}(_\mu \phi _A+_\mu \phi _B)\frac{1}{2}_\mu \phi ,$$
(8)
which denotes the classical part of the quasiparticle-vortex interaction. The coupling of $`v_\mu `$ to fermions is the same as that of the usual electromagnetic gauge field $`A_\mu `$ and is therefore non-minimal, due to the pairing term in the original Hamiltonian $``$ (2). It is this non-minimal interaction with $`v_\mu `$, which we call the Meissner coupling, that is responsible for the U(1) phase factors $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta )`$. These U(1) phase factors are “random”, in the sense that they are not topological in nature – their values depend on detailed distribution of superfluid fields of all vortices and “spin-waves” as well as on the internal structure of BdG fermion loops, i.e. what is the sequence of spin-up and spin-down portions along such loops. In this respect, while its minimal coupling to BdG fermions means that, within the lattice d-wave superconductor model ft2 , one is naturally tempted to represent the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$ as a compact U(1) gauge field, the Doppler gauge field $`v_\mu `$ is decidedly non-compact, lattice or no lattice compact . The reader should be advised, however, that the issue of “compactness” of $`a_\mu `$ versus “non-compactness” of $`v_\mu `$ constitutes a moot point: $`a_\mu `$ and $`v_\mu `$ as defined by Eqs. (7,8) are not independent since the discrete spacetime configurations of vortex defects $`\{𝐫_i(\tau )\}`$ serve as sources for both. We will belabor this important issue in the next subsection.

For now, note that all choices of the sets $`A`$ and $`B`$ in transformation (4) are completely equivalent – different choices represent different singular gauges and $`v_\mu `$, and therefore $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta )`$, are invariant under such transformations. $`a_\mu `$, on the other hand, changes but only through the introduction of ($`\pm `$) unit Aharonov-Bohm fluxes at locations of those vortex defects involved in the transformation. Consequently, the Z2 style $`(\pm 1)`$ phase factors associated with $`a_\mu `$ that multiply the fermion loops remain unchanged. We now symmetrize the partition function with respect to this singular gauge by defining a generalized transformation (4) as the sum over all possible choices of $`A`$ and $`B`$, i.e., over the entire family of singular gauge transformations. This is an Ising sum with $`2^{N_l}`$ members, where $`N_l`$ is the total number of vortex defects in $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$, and is itself yet another choice of the singular gauge. The many benefits of such symmetrized gauge will be discussed shortly but we stress here that its ultimate function is calculational convenience. What actually matters for the physics is that the original $`\phi `$ be split into two XY phases so that the vortex defects of every distinct topological class are apportioned equally between $`\phi _A`$ and $`\phi _B`$ (4) ft ; ft2 .

The physics behind this last requirement can be intuitively appreciated as follows: imagine that we simply prohibit singly quantized vortex excitations and replace them in (6) by doubly quantized $`(hc/e)`$ vortices. In this case, the Berry gauge field attaches a multiple of a full Aharonov-Bohm flux to each vortex position and all the phase factors in front of fermion loops equal unity – this is equivalent to $`a_\mu =0`$ and complete absence of topological frustration. It is then natural to select the gauge which eliminates $`a_\mu `$ altogether. This is straightforwardly accomplished by screening each doubly quantized $`(hc/e)`$ vortex defect with a unit-flux Dirac string in $`\psi _{}`$ and an equivalent one in $`\psi _{}`$. The resulting sets of $`A`$ and $`B`$ vortices are two identical replicas of each other and $`a_\mu =\frac{1}{2}(_\mu \phi _A_\mu \phi _B)0`$. Now, while still staying within the same gauge, we allow doubly quantized vortices to relax into energetically more favorable configurations – they will immediately decay into singly quantized vortices and our sets $`A`$ and $`B`$ will end up containing an equal number of singly quantized vortices of each distinct topological class. For example, in the case of 2D thermal fluctuations $`\phi _{A(B)}`$ should each contain a half of the original vortices in $`\phi `$ and a half of antivortices. This is readily achieved by including those (anti)vortex variables whose positions are labeled by $`𝐫_i`$ with $`i`$ even into $`\phi _A`$, while the odd ones are absorbed into $`\phi _B`$. The symmetrization is just a convenient mathematical tool that automatically guarantees this goal.

The above symmetrization leads to the new partition function: $`Z\stackrel{~}{Z}`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{Z}=𝒟\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}𝒟\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}𝒟v_\mu 𝒟a_\mu \mathrm{exp}[_0^\beta 𝑑\tau d^2r\stackrel{~}{}],$$
(9)
in which the half-flux-to-minus-half-flux (Z2) symmetry of the singular gauge transformation (4) is now manifest:

$$\stackrel{~}{}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}[(_\tau +ia_\tau )\sigma _0+iv_\tau \sigma _3]\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ],$$
(10)
where $`_0`$ is the “Jacobian” of the transformation given by

$`e^{_0^\beta 𝑑\tau {\scriptscriptstyle d^2r_0}}=2^{N_l}{\displaystyle \underset{A,B}{}}{\displaystyle 𝒟\phi (𝐫,\tau )}`$ (11)
$`\times \delta [v_\mu \frac{1}{2}(_\mu \phi _A+_\mu \phi _B)]\delta [a_\mu \frac{1}{2}(_\mu \phi _A_\mu \phi _B)].`$
Here $`\sigma _\mu `$ are the Pauli matrices, $`\beta =1/T`$, $`^{}`$ is given in Eq. (6) and, for later convenience, $`_0`$ will also include the energetics of vortex core overlap driven by amplitude fluctuations and thus independent of long range superflow (and of $`𝐀`$). We call the transformed quasiparticles $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}=(\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}_{},\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{})`$ appearing in (10) “topological fermions” (TF). TF are the natural fermionic excitations of the pseudogapped normal state. They are electrically neutral and are related to the original quasiparticles by the inversion of transformation (4).

By recasting the original problem in terms of topological fermions we have accomplished our original goal: the interactions between quasiparticles and vortices are now described solely in terms of two local superflow fields ft :

$$v_{A\mu }=_\mu \phi _A;v_{B\mu }=_\mu \phi _B,$$
(12)
which we can think of as superfluid velocities associated with the phase configurations $`\phi _{A(B)}(𝐫,\tau )`$ of a (2+1)-dimensional XY model with periodic boundary conditions along the $`\tau `$-axis. Our Doppler and Berry gauge fields $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ are linear combinations of $`v_{A\mu }`$ and $`v_{B\mu }`$. Note that $`a_\mu `$ is produced exclusively by vortex defects since the “spin-wave” configurations of $`\phi `$ can be fully absorbed into $`v_\mu `$. All that remains is to perform the sum in (9) over all the “spin-wave” fluctuations and all the spacetime configurations of vortex defects $`\{𝐫_i(\tau )\}`$ of this (2+1)-dimensional XY model.

### II.3 “Coarse-grained” Doppler and Berry U(1) gauge fields ($`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$) and their physical significance

Unfortunately, the exact integration over the phase $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$ is prohibitively difficult. To proceed by analytic means we must devise some approximate procedure to integrate over vortex-antivortex positions $`\{𝐫_i(\tau )\}`$ in (9) which will capture qualitative features of at least the long-distance, low-energy physics of the original problem. This is where our recasting of the problem in terms of BdG fermions interacting with superflow fields $`v_{A\mu }`$ and $`v_{B\mu }`$ (12) will come in handy. A hint of how to devise such an approximation comes from examining the role of the Doppler gauge field $`v_\mu `$ in the physics of this problem. To illustrate our reasoning and for simplicity, we consider the finite $`T`$ case where we can ignore the $`\tau `$-dependence of $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$. The results are easily generalized, with appropriate modifications, to include quantum fluctuations.

We start by noting that $`𝐕_s=2𝐯(2e/c)𝐀`$ is just the physical superfluid velocity remark11 , invariant under both $`AB`$ singular gauge transformations (4) and ordinary electromagnetic U(1) gauge symmetry. The superfluid velocity (Doppler) field, swirling around each (anti)vortex defect, is responsible for a vast majority of phenomena that we associate with vortices: long range interactions between vortex defects, coupling to external magnetic field and the Abrikosov lattice of the mixed state, Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, etc. Remarkably, we will show that its role is essential even for the physics discussed in the present paper, although it now appears as a supporting actor to the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$ which ultimately occupies the center stage. To see how this comes about, imagine that $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$ were absent – then, upon integration over topological fermions in (10), we obtain the following term in the effective Largangian:

$$M^2\left(\phi \frac{2e}{c}𝐀\right)^2+(\mathrm{}),$$
(13)
where $`(\mathrm{})`$ denotes higher order powers and derivatives of $`2\phi (2e/c)𝐀`$. In the above we have replaced $`𝐯(1/2)\phi `$ to emphasize that the leading term, with the coefficient $`M^2`$ proportional to the bare superfluid density, is just the standard superfluid-velocity-squared term of the continuum XY model – the notation $`M^2`$ for the coefficient will become clear in a moment. We can now write $`\phi =\phi _{\mathrm{vortex}}+\phi _{\mathrm{spin}\mathrm{wave}}`$ and reexpress the transverse portion of (13) in terms of (anti)vortex positions $`\{𝐫_i\}`$ to obtain a familiar form:

$$\frac{M^2}{2\pi }\underset{i,j}{}\mathrm{ln}|𝐫_i𝐫_j|$$
(14)
or, by using $`\phi _{\mathrm{vortex}}=0`$ and $`\times \phi _{\mathrm{vortex}}=2\pi \rho (𝐫)`$, equivalently as:

$$\frac{M^2}{2\pi }d^2rd^2r^{}\rho (𝐫)\rho (𝐫^{})\mathrm{ln}|𝐫𝐫^{}|,$$
(15)
where $`\rho (𝐫)=2\pi _iq_i\delta (𝐫𝐫_i)`$ is the vortex density.

The Meissner coupling of $`𝐯`$ to fermions is very strong – it leads to familiar long range interactions between vortices which constrain vortex fluctuations to a remarkable degree. To make this statement mathematically explicit we introduce the Fourier transform of vortex density $`\rho (𝐪)=_i\mathrm{exp}(i𝐪𝐫_i)`$ and observe that its variance satisfies:

$$\rho (𝐪)\rho (𝐪)q^2/M^2.$$
(16)
Vortex defects form an incompressible liquid – the long distance vorticity fluctuations are strongly suppressed. This “incompressibility constraint” is naturally enforced in (9) by replacing the integral over discrete vortex positions $`\{𝐫_i\}`$ with the integral over continuously distributed field $`\overline{\rho }(𝐫)`$ with $`\overline{\rho }(𝐫)=0`$. The Kosterlitz-Thouless transition and other vortex phenomenology are still maintained in the non-trivial structure of $`_0[\overline{\rho }(𝐫)]`$. But the long wavelength form of (13) now reads:

$$M^2\left(2\overline{𝐯}\frac{2e}{c}𝐀\right)^2+(\mathrm{}),$$
(17)
and can be interpreted as a massive action for a U(1) gauge field $`\overline{𝐯}`$. The latter is our coarse grained Doppler gauge field defined by

$$\times \overline{𝐯}(𝐫)=\pi \overline{\rho }(𝐫).$$
(18)
We have now gone full circle with the Doppler gauge field $`𝐯`$. The coarse-graining procedure has made it into a massive U(1) gauge field $`\overline{𝐯}`$ whose influence on TF disappears in the long wavelength limit. We can therefore drop it from low energy fermiology. Hereafter we shall drop the bar and use symbol $`𝐯`$ for both the actual and the coarse grained quantity, the meaning being obvious from the context.

The real problem also contains the Berry gauge field $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$ which now must be restored. However, if we are to take advantage of introducing continuous $`\rho (𝐫)`$ and eventually dispensing with $`𝐯`$, $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$ cannot remain the same gauge field we started with in Eq. (10) when we embarked on our quest to derive the effective theory. Having replaced the Doppler field $`𝐯`$ with the distributed quantity (18), we cannot simply continue to keep $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$ specified by half-flux Dirac (Aharonov-Bohm) strings located at discrete vortex positions $`\{𝐫_i\}`$. Instead, $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$ must be replaced by some new gauge field which reflects the “coarse-graining” that has been applied to $`𝐯`$ – simply put, the Z2-valued Berry gauge field (7) of the original problem (10) must be “dressed” in such a way as to best compensate for the error introduced by “coarse-graining” $`𝐯`$. In the language of RG, we must find such “dressing” of the Berry gauge field, i.e. the form and the bare action for $`𝐚(a_\mu )`$, which renders any such errors unimportant for the low energy physics.

The recipe for such a required “dressing” of the Berry gauge field is straightforward in the FT singular gauge – it takes the form of a non-compact U(1) gauge field with a simple Maxwellian action. To see how this comes about note that if we insist on replacing $`𝐯`$ by its “coarse-grained” form (18), the only way to achieve this is to “coarse-grain” both $`𝐯_A`$ and $`𝐯_B`$ in the same manner:

$$\times 𝐯_A2\pi \rho _A;\times 𝐯_B2\pi \rho _B,$$
(19)
where $`\rho _{A,B}(𝐫)`$ are now continuously distributed densities of $`A(B)`$ vortex defects (the reader should contrast this with (7,8)). This is because the elementary vortex variables of our problem are not the sources of $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$; rather, they are the sources of $`𝐯_A`$ and $`𝐯_B`$. We cannot separately fluctuate or “coarse-grain” the Doppler and the Berry “halves” of a given vortex defect – they are permanently confined into a physical $`(hc/2e)`$ vortex. On the other hand, we can independently fluctuate $`A`$ and $`B`$ vortices – this is why it was important to use the singular gauge (4) to rewrite the original problem solely in terms of $`A`$ and $`B`$ vortices and associated superflow fields (12).

Following this recipe we can now reassemble the coarse-grained Doppler and Berry gauge fields as:

$$𝐯=\frac{1}{2}(𝐯_A+𝐯_B);𝐚=\frac{1}{2}(𝐯_A𝐯_B),$$
(20)
with the straightforward generalization to (2+1)D:

$$v=\frac{1}{2}(v_A+v_B);a=\frac{1}{2}(v_Av_B).$$
(21)
The coupling of $`𝐯_A(v_A)`$ and $`𝐯_B(v_B)`$ to fermions is a hybrid of Meissner and minimal coupling compact . They contribute a product of U(1) phase factors $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta _A)\times \mathrm{exp}(i\delta _B)`$ to the BdG fermion loops with both $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta _A)`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta _B)`$ being “random” in the sense of previous subsection. Upon coarse-graining $`𝐯_A(v_A)`$ and $`𝐯_B(v_B)`$ turn into non-compact U(1) gauge fields and therefore $`𝐯(v)`$ and $`𝐚(a)`$ must as well.

### II.4 Further remarks on FT gauge

The above “coarse-grained” theory must have the following symmetry: it has to be invariant under the exchange of spin-up and spin-down labels, $`\psi _{}\psi _{}`$, without any changes in $`𝐯`$ ($`v`$). This symmetry insures that (arbitrarily preselected) $`S_z`$ component of the spin, which is the same for TF and real electrons, decouples from the physical superfluid velocity which naturally must couple only to charge. When dealing with discrete vortex defects this symmetry is guaranteed by the singular gauge symmetry defined by the family of transformations (4). However, if we replace $`𝐯_A`$ and $`𝐯_B`$ by their distributed “coarse-grained” versions, the said symmetry is preserved only in the FT gauge. This is seen by considering the effective Lagrangian expressed in terms of coarse-grained quantities:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}_\tau \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+_0[\rho _A,\rho _B],$$
(22)
where $`^{}`$ is given by (6), $`𝐯_A`$, $`𝐯_B`$ are connected to $`\rho _A`$, $`\rho _B`$ via (19), and $`_0`$ is independent of $`\tau `$.

The problem lurks in $`_0[\rho _A,\rho _B]`$ – this is just the entropy functional of fluctuating free $`A(B)`$ vortex-antivortex defects and has the following symmetry: $`\rho _{A(B)}\rho _{A(B)}`$ with $`\rho _{B(A)}`$ kept unchanged. This symmetry reflects the fact that the entropic “interactions” do not depend on vorticity. Above the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition we can expand:

$$_0\frac{K_A}{4}(\times 𝐯_A)^2+\frac{K_B}{4}(\times 𝐯_B)^2+(\mathrm{}),$$
(23)
where the ellipsis denote higher order terms and the coefficients $`K_{A(B)}^1n_l^{A(B)}`$ (see Appendix A for details).

The above discussed symmetry of Hamiltonian $`^{}`$ (6) demands that $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ (20,21) be the natural choice for independent distributed vortex fluctuation gauge fields which should appear in our ultimate effective theory. $`_0`$, however, collides with this symmetry of $`^{}`$ – if we replace $`𝐯_{A(B)}𝐯\pm 𝐚`$ in (23), we realize that $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ are coupled through $`_0`$ in the general case $`K_AK_B`$:

$`_0`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{K_A+K_B}{4}}\left((\times 𝐯)^2+(\times 𝐚)^2\right)`$ (24)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{K_AK_B}{2}}(\times 𝐚)(\times 𝐯).`$
Therefore, via its coupling to $`𝐚`$, the superfluid velocity $`𝐯`$ couples to the “spin” of topological fermions and ultimately to the true spin of the real electrons. This is an unacceptable feature for the effective theory and seriously handicaps the general “$`AB`$” gauge, in which the original phase is split into $`\phi \phi _A+\phi _B`$, with $`\phi _{A(B)}`$ each containing some arbitrary fraction of the original vortex defects. In contrast, the symmetrized transformation (4) which apportions vortex defects equally between $`\phi _A`$ and $`\phi _B`$ ft  leads to $`K_A=K_B`$ and to decoupling of $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ at quadratic order, thus eliminating the problem at its root. Furthermore, even if we start with the general “$`AB`$” gauge, the renormalization of $`_0`$ arising from integration over fermions will ultimately drive $`K_AK_B0`$ and make the coupling of $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ irrelevant in the RG sense andersongauge . This argument is actually quite rigorous in the case of quantum fluctuations where the symmetrized gauge (4) represents a fixed point in the RG analysis (see below) coulombgauge . Consequently, it appears that the symmetrized singular transformation (4) employed in (10) is the preferred gauge for the construction of the effective low-energy theory coulombgauge ; remarkboring . In this respect, while all the singular $`AB`$ gauges are created equal some are ultimately more equal than others.

The above discussion provides the rationale behind using the FT transformation in our quest for the effective theory. At low energies, the interactions between quasiparticles and vortices are represented by two U(1) gauge fields $`v`$ and $`a`$ (20,21). The conversion of $`a`$ from a Z2-valued to a non-compact U(1) field with Maxwellian action is effected by the confinement of the Doppler to the Berry half of a singly quantized vortex – in the coarse-graining process the phase factors $`\mathrm{exp}(i\delta )`$ of the non-compact Doppler part “contaminate” the original $`(\pm 1)`$ factors supplied by $`a`$ (7). This contamination diminishes as doping $`x0`$ since then $`v_F/v_\mathrm{\Delta }0`$ and “vortices” are effectively liberated of their Doppler content. In this limit, the pure Z2 nature of $`a`$ is recovered and one enters the realm of the Z2 gauge theory of Senthil and Fisher senthil . In contrast, in the pairing pseudogap regime of this paper where $`v_F/v_\mathrm{\Delta }>1`$ and singly quantized $`(hc/2e)`$ vortices appear to be the relevant excitations bonn , we expect the effective theory to take the U(1) form described by $`v`$ and $`a`$ (20,21).

### II.5 Jacobian $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ and its Maxwellian form

Having elucidated the origin of the “coarse-grained” U(1) gauge fields $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ and settled on the symmetrized FT transformation (4) as the natural gauge choice for this problem, there remains one more task to be accomplished before we can conclude this Section. We need to derive a precise expression for the long distance, low energy form of the “Jacobian” $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ which serves as the “bare action” for the gauge fields $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ of our effective theory. As shown below, this form is a non-compact Maxwellian whose stiffness $`K`$ (or inverse “charge” $`1/e^2=K`$) stands in intimate relation to the helicity modulus tensor of a dSC and, in the pseudogap regime of strong superconducting fluctuations, can be expressed in terms of a finite physical superconducting correlation length $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$, $`K\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}^2`$ (2D); $`K\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ ((2+1)D). As we enter the superconducting phase and $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}\mathrm{}`$, $`K\mathrm{}`$ as well (or $`e^20`$), implying that $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ have become massive. Our derivation, the results of which were originally quoted and used in Ref. ftqed , can be accomplished with remarkably little algebra and holds for Ginzburg-Landau, XY model or any other representation of superconducting fluctuations. This is no accident – the straightforward relationship between the massless (or massive) character of $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ and the superconducting phase disorder (or order) is a consequence of rather general physical and symmetry principles.

To make good on the above claim consider first a simple example of an s-wave superconductor with a large gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ extending over all of the Fermi surface. We can also view this as a model for the high energy BdG quasiparticles in dSC, those far removed from the nodes. The action takes the form similar to (10):

$$\stackrel{~}{}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}[(_\tau +ia_\tau )\sigma _0+iv_\tau \sigma _3]\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}_s^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}+_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ],$$
(25)
but with $`_s^{}`$ defined as:

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2m}(\widehat{\pi }+𝐯)^2ϵ_F& \mathrm{\Delta }\\ \mathrm{\Delta }& \frac{1}{2m}(\widehat{\pi }𝐯)^2+ϵ_F\end{array}\right),$$
(26)
with $`\widehat{\pi }=\widehat{𝐩}+𝐚`$. $`v_\mu `$ in the fermionic action (but not in $`_0`$) goes into $`v_\mu (e/c)A_\mu `$ when the electromagnetic field is included. The reader might wish to recall here that we have defined $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ in this particular way to clearly separate the superflow mediated interactions among vortices, which include $`A_\mu `$, from the entropic effects and short range amplitude driven core-overlap interactions, which do not.

#### II.5.1 Thermal vortex-antivortex fluctuations

We can now reap the benefits of this convenient separation. In the language of BdG fermions the system (25) is a large gap “semiconductor” and the Berry gauge field couples to it minimally through “BdG” vector and scalar potentials $`𝐚`$ and $`a_\tau `$. Such BdG semiconductor is a poor dielectric diamagnet with respect to $`a_\mu `$. We proceed to ignore its “diamagnetic susceptibility” and also set $`a_\tau =0`$ to concentrate on thermal fluctuations. All this means is that the Berry gauge field part of the coupling between quasiparticles and vortices in a large gap s-wave superconductor influences the latter only through weak short-range interactions which are unimportant in the region of strong vortex fluctuations near Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. We can therefore drop $`𝐚`$ from the fermionic part of the action and integrate over it to obtain $`_0`$ in terms of physical vorticity $`\rho (𝐫)=(\times 𝐯)/\pi `$. Additional integration over the fermions produces the effective free energy functional for vortices:

$$[\rho ]=M^2(2𝐯\frac{2e}{c}𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}})^2+(\mathrm{})+_0[\rho ],$$
(27)
where we have used our earlier notation and have introduced a small external transverse vector potential $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. The ellipsis denotes higher order contributions to vortex interactions. As discussed earlier in this Section, the familiar long range interactions between vortices lead directly to the standard Coulomb gas representation of the vortex-antivortex fluctuation problem and Kosterlitz-Thouless transition.

The presence of these long range interactions implies that the vortex system is incompressible (16) and long distance vortex density fluctuations are suppressed. When studying the coupling of BdG quasiparticles to these fluctuations it therefore suffices to expand the “entropic” part:

$$_0[\rho ]\frac{1}{2}\pi ^2K\delta \rho ^2+\mathrm{}=\frac{1}{2}K(\times 𝐯)^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(28)
The above expansion is justified above $`T_c`$ since we know that at $`TT_c`$ we must match the purely entropic form of a non-interacting particle system, $`_0\delta \rho ^2`$ (see Appendix A).

To uncover the physical meaning of coefficient $`K`$ we expand the free energy $`F`$ of the vortex system to second order in $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. In the pseudogap state the gauge invariance demands that $`F`$ depends only on $`\times 𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$:

$$F[\times 𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}]=F[0]+\frac{(2e)^2}{2c^2}\chi d^2r(\times 𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}})^2+\mathrm{}$$
(29)
Note that $`((2e)^2/c^2)\chi `$ is just the diamagnetic susceptibility in the pseudogap state. $`\chi `$ determines the long wavelength form of the helicity modulus tensor $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ defined as:

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(q)=\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{\delta ^2F}{\delta A_\mu ^{\mathrm{ext}}(q)\delta A_\nu ^{\mathrm{ext}}(q)}|_{A_\mu ^{\mathrm{ext}}0}.$$
(30)
The above is the more general form of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ applicable to uniaxially symmetric 3D and (2+1)D XY or Ginzburg-Landau models; in 2D only $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{xy}(𝐪)`$ appears. In the long wavelength limit $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ vanishes as $`q^2\chi `$:

$$\frac{c^2}{(2e)^2}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(𝐪)=\chi ϵ_{\rho \alpha \mu }ϵ_{\rho \beta \nu }q_\alpha q_\beta +\mathrm{},$$
(31)
for the isotropic case, while for the anisotropic situation $`\chi _{}\chi _{}`$:

$$\frac{c^2}{(2e)^2}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(𝐪)=(\chi _{}\chi _{})ϵ_{z\alpha \mu }ϵ_{z\beta \nu }q_\alpha q_\beta +\chi _{}ϵ_{\rho \alpha \mu }ϵ_{\rho \beta \nu }q_\alpha q_\beta .$$
(32)
$`ϵ_{\alpha \beta \gamma }`$ is the Levi-Civita symbol, summation over repeated indices is understood and index $`z`$ of the anisotropic 3D GL or XY model is replaced by $`\tau `$ for the (2+1)D case. $`(2e)^2/c^2`$ is factored out for later convenience.

So, what is $`K`$? Let us compute the helicity modulus of the problem explicitly. This is done by absorbing the small transverse vector potential $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$ into $`𝐯`$ in (25,6) and integrating over the new variable $`𝐯(e/c)𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. The hecility modulus tensor measures the screening properties of the vortex system. In a superconductor, with topological defects bound in vortex-antivortex dipoles, there is no screening at long distances. This translates into Meissner effect for $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. When the dipoles unbind and some free vortex-antivortex excitations appear the screening is now possible over all lengthscales and there is no Meissner effect for $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. The information on presence or absence of such screening is actually stored entirely in $`_0`$, where $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$ reemerges after the above change of variables. We finally obtain:

$$4\chi =K\frac{K^2\pi ^2}{T}\underset{|𝐪|0^+}{lim}d^2re^{i𝐪𝐫}\delta \rho (𝐫)\delta \rho (0),$$
(33)
where the thermal average $`\mathrm{}`$ is over the free energy (27) with $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}=0`$ or, equivalently, (25). In the normal phase only the first term contributes in the long wavelength limit, the second being down by an extra power of $`q^2`$ courtesy of long range vortex interactions. Consequently, $`K=4\chi `$ (the factor of 4 is due to the fact that the true superfluid velocity is $`2𝐯`$ remark11 ).

We see that in the pseudogap phase, with free vortex defects available to screen, $`_0[𝐯]`$ takes on a massless Maxwellian form, the stiffness of which is given by the diamagnetic susceptibility of a strongly fluctuating superconductor. In the fluctuation region $`\chi `$ is given by the superconducting correlation length $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ zbtloops :

$$K=4\chi =4𝒞_2T\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}^2,$$
(34)
where $`𝒞_2`$ is a numerical constant, intrinsic to a 2D GL, XY or some other model of superconducting fluctuations.

As we approach $`T_c`$, $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}\mathrm{}`$ and the stiffness of Maxwellian term (28) diverges. This can be interpreted as the Doppler gauge field becoming massive. Indeed, immediately bellow the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition at $`T_c`$, $`_0m_v^2𝐯^2+\mathrm{}`$, where $`m_vM`$ and $`m_v0`$ as $`TT_c^{}`$. This is just a reflection of the helicity modulus tensor now becoming finite in the long wavelength limit,

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{xy}\frac{4e^2}{c^2}\frac{m_v^2M^2}{4M^2+m_v^2}.$$

Topological defects are now bound in vortex-antivortex pairs and cannot screen resulting in the Meissner effect for $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$. The system is a superconductor and $`𝐯`$ had become massive.

Returning to a d-wave superconductor, we can retrace the steps in the above analysis but we must replace $`_s^{}`$ in (25) with $`^{}`$ (6). Now, instead of a large gap BdG “semiconductor”, we are dealing with a narrow gap “semiconductor” or BdG “semimetal” because of the low energy nodal quasiparticles. This means that we must restore the Berry gauge field $`𝐚`$ to the fermionic action since the contribution from nodal quasiparticles makes its BdG “diamagnetic susceptibility” very large, $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}1/T1/T^{}`$ (see the next Section). The long distance fluctuations of $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ are now both strongly suppressed, the former through incompressibility of the vortex system and the latter through $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}`$. This allows us to expand (23):

$$_0\frac{K_A}{4}(\times 𝐯_A)^2+\frac{K_B}{4}(\times 𝐯_B)^2+(\mathrm{}),$$
(35)
where $`K_A=K_B=K`$ is mandated by the FT singular gauge. Since in our gauge the fermion spin and charge channels decouple $`𝐀^{\mathrm{ext}}`$ still couples only to $`𝐯`$ and the above arguments connecting $`K`$ to the helicity modulus and diamagnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$ follow through. This finally gives the Maxwellian form of Ref. ftqed :

$$_0\frac{K}{2}(\times 𝐯)^2+\frac{K}{2}(\times 𝐚)^2,$$
(36)
where $`K`$ is still given by Eq. (34). Note however that $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ of a d-wave and of an s-wave superconductor are two rather different functions of $`T`$, $`x`$ and other parameters of the problem, due to strong Berry gauge field renormalizations of vortex interactions in the d-wave case. Nonetheless, as $`TT_c`$, the Kosterlitz-Thouless critical behavior remains unaffected since $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}`$, while large, is still finite at all finite $`T`$.

Just as advertised, we have shown that $`_0[\rho _A,\rho _B]=_0[𝐯,𝐚]`$ in the pseudogap state takes on the massless Maxwellian form (36), with the stiffness $`K`$ set by the true superconducting correlation length $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ (34). This result holds as a general feature of our theory irrespective of whether one employs a Ginzburg-Landau theory, XY model, vortex-antivortex Coulomb plasma, or any other description of strongly fluctuating dSC, as long as such description properly takes into account vortex-antivortex fluctuations and reproduces Kosterlitz-Thouless phenomenology. In the Appendix A we show that within the continuum vortex-antivortex Coulomb plasma model:

$$_0\frac{T}{2\pi ^2n_l}\left[(\times 𝐯)^2+(\times 𝐚)^2\right],$$
(37)
where $`n_l`$ is the average density of free vortex and antivortex defects. Comparison with (36) allows us to identify $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}^24\pi ^2𝒞_2n_l`$ ftqed .

#### II.5.2 Quantum fluctuations of (2+1)D vortex loops

The above results can be generalized to quantum fluctuations of spacetime vortex loops. The superflow fields $`v_{A(B)\mu }`$ satisfy $`(\times v_{A(B)})_\mu =2\pi j_{A(B)\mu }`$, where $`j_{A(B)\mu }(x)`$ are the coarse-grained vorticities associated with $`A(B)`$ vortex defects and $`j_{A(B)\mu }=0`$. The topology of vortex loops dictates that $`j_{A(B)\mu }(x)`$ be a purely transverse field, i.e. $`j_{A(B)}=0`$, reflecting the fact that loops have no starting nor ending point. Again, we begin with a large gap s-wave superconductor and use its poor BdG diamagnetic/dielectric nature to justify dropping the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$ from the fermionic part of (25) and integrating over $`a_\mu `$ in the “entropic” part containing $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$.

The integration over the fermions contains an important novelty specific to the (2+1)D case: the appearance of the Berry phase terms for quantum vortices as they wind around fermions. Such Berry phase is the consequence of the first order time derivative in the original fermionic action (1). If we think of spacetime vortex loops as worldlines of some relativistic quantum bosons dual to the Cooper pair field $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,\tau )`$, as we do in the Appendix A, then these bosons see Cooper pairs and quasiparticles as sources of “magnetic” flux nodalliquid . At the mean field level, this translates into a dual “Abrikosov lattice” or a Wigner crystal of holes in a dual superfluid. Accordingly, the non-superconducting ground state in the pseudogap regime will likely contain a weak charge modulation – the modulation is made weak by the same strong fluctuations that make $`T_cT^{}(T_{\mathrm{Nernst}})`$. The focus of the present paper being the symmetric AFL description of the pseudogap, we postpone the discussion of this point to Part II and will ignore it for the rest of this paper. This is justified by the fact that $`a_\mu `$ does not couple to charge directly and is quantitatively valid in the window $`T,\mathrm{\Delta }_f(\omega ,v_{F,\mathrm{\Delta }}|𝐪|)T^{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_f`$ is any small gap in the nodal TF spectrum produced by the said charge modulation.

Hereafter, we blissfully turn the blind eye to the above subtleties and assume that the transition from a dSC into a pseudogap phase proceeds via unbinding of vortex loops of a (2+1)D XY model or its GL counterpart or, equivalently, an anisotropic 3D XY or GL model where the role of imaginary time is taken on by a third spatial axis $`z`$ sudbo . Having learned all we really need from an earlier 2D example we can now integrate the fermions to obtain the effective Lagrangian for coarse-grained spacetime loops ($`\pi j_\mu =(\times v)_\mu `$):

$$[j_\mu ]=M_\mu ^2(2v_\mu \frac{2e}{c}A_\mu ^{\mathrm{ext}})^2+(\mathrm{})+_0[j_\mu ],$$
(38)
where $`M_x=M_y=M`$ and $`M_\tau =M/c_s`$, with $`c_sv_F`$ being the effective “speed of light” in the vortex loop spacetime. The incompressibility condition reads $`j_\mu (q)j_\nu (q)q^2[\delta _{\mu \nu }(q_\mu q_\nu /q^2)]`$ and in the pseudogap state permits the expansion:

$$_0[j_\mu ]\frac{1}{2}\pi ^2K_\tau j_\tau ^2+\frac{1}{2}\pi ^2\underset{i=x,y}{}K_ij_i^2,$$
(39)
where $`K_x=K_y=KK_\tau `$. Using the analogy with the uniaxially symmetric anisotropic 3D XY (or GL) model we can expand the ground state energy in the manner of (29):

$$E[\times A^{\mathrm{ext}}]=E[0]+\frac{(2e)^2}{2c^2}\underset{,}{}\chi _,d^3x(\times A^{\mathrm{ext}})_,^2,$$
(40)
with $`\chi _{}=\chi _x=\chi _y=\chi `$ and $`\chi _{}=\chi _\tau \chi `$. Note that the form of $`_0`$ (39) follows directly from the requirement that there are infinitely large vortex loops, resulting in vorticity fluctuations over all distances. Combined with (40) and then translated to the language of a (2+1)D XY (GL) model it tells us something already familiar: upon the transition to the pseudogap state generated by vortex loops unbinding, the superconductor has turned into an insulator nodalliquid . $`\chi `$ and $`\chi _\tau `$ determine the diamagnetic and dielectric susceptibilities of this insulating pseudogap state.

The explicit computation of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ (30,32) leads to:

$$4\chi _{i,\tau }=K_{i,\tau }K_{i,\tau }^2\pi ^2\underset{q0^+}{lim}d^3xe^{iqx}j(x)_{i,\tau }j(0)_{i,\tau },$$
(41)
where the second term is again eliminated by the incompressibility of the vortex system. This results in:

$$K=4\chi =4𝒞_3\xi _\tau ;K_\tau =4\chi _\tau =4𝒞_3\frac{\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}^2}{\xi _\tau },$$
(42)
where we used the result for the anisotropic 3D XY or GL models: $`\chi _{}=𝒞_3T\xi _{}`$, $`\chi _{}=𝒞_3T\xi _{}^2/\xi _{}`$, $`𝒞_3`$ being the intrinsic numerical constant for those models ($`𝒞_3𝒞_2`$). In the case of (2+1)D vortex loops $`\xi _\tau \xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$ since our adopted model has the dynamical critical exponent $`z=1`$. Thus, we again encounter a massless Maxwellian form (39) whose stiffness diverges as we approach a superconductor except now this divergence is linear in the superconducting correlation length, $`K\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}`$.

The application to a d-wave superconductor is straightforward: the nodal structure of BdG quasiparticles in dSC helps along by the way of providing the anomalous stiffness for the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$ – upon integration over the nodal fermions the following term emerges in the effective action:

$$\frac{1}{2}\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}(q)(q^2\delta _{\mu \nu }q_\mu q_\nu )a_\mu (q)a_\nu (q)$$

$$|q|[\delta _{\mu \nu }(q_\mu q_\nu /q^2)]a_\mu (q)a_\nu (q).$$
(43)
In the terminology of our chimerical BdG “semimetal”, the “susceptibility” $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}`$ is not merely very large, it diverges: $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}1/q`$, as $`q0`$, and is computed in detail in Section IV. We use this pleasing fact to observe that we are fully justified in expanding $`_0[j_{A\mu },j_{B\mu }]`$ and retaining only quadratic terms as long as we keep a safe distance from the actual phase transition:

$$_0\frac{K_{A\mu }}{4}(\times v_A)_\mu ^2+\frac{K_{B\mu }}{4}(\times v_B)_\mu ^2+(\mathrm{}),$$
(44)
where $`K_{A\mu }=K_{B\mu }=K_\mu `$ is again assured by our choice of the FT singular gauge (4,11).

The above reasoning merits an amusing aside: beside the ubiquitous incompressibility ($`(\times v)_\mu (\times v)_\nu q^2[\delta _{\mu \nu }(q_\mu q_\nu /q^2)]`$) the integration over nodal fermions now also occasions diverging $`\chi _{\mathrm{BdG}}`$ implying $`(\times a)_\mu (\times a)_\nu q[\delta _{\mu \nu }(q_\mu q_\nu /q^2)]`$. Had we chosen a singular gauge in which the sets $`A`$ and $`B`$ were not equivalent, like Anderson gauge andersongauge , and therefore $`K_{A\mu }K_{B\mu }`$, the ensuing $`(\times v)(\times a)`$ coupling in $`_0`$ (44,24) would now be driven to zero in the long distance limit as an irrelevant operator in the RG sense remarkdangerous . The reason is simple: the coupling of gauge fields $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ to topological fermions mandates that they decouple at the quadratic (harmonic) level due to decoupling of “charge” and “spin” channels for TF. Such coupling of $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ can only arise from $`_0`$ by our uninformed choice of a singular gauge. Since both $`(\times v)^2`$ and $`(\times a)^2`$ terms in (44) are strongly relevant due to diverging contributions they receive from fermions, the coupling constant in front of $`(\times v)(\times a)`$, proportional to $`K_{A\mu }K_{B\mu }`$, is driven to zero under repeated applications of RG transformation. Therefore, the FT gauge (4,11) specifically designed to insure $`K_{A\mu }K_{B\mu }=0`$ at the very start, is recovered as an RG fixed point coulombgauge .

Finally, we rewrite (44) in terms of $`v_\mu ,a_\mu =(1/2)(v_{A\mu }\pm v_{B\mu })`$:

$$_0\frac{K_\mu }{2}(\times v)_\mu ^2+\frac{K_\mu }{2}(\times a)_\mu ^2,$$
(45)
and observe that the fact that $`A_\mu ^{\mathrm{ext}}`$ couples only to $`v_\mu `$ means that the expression (42) for $`K_\mu `$ is still valid. Of course, $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}(x,T)`$ is now truly different from its s-wave counterpart, including a possible difference in the critical exponent, since the coupling of d-wave quasiparticles to the Berry gauge field is marginal at the RG engineering level and may change the quantum critical behavior of the superconductor-pseudogap (insulator) transition.

## III QED3 – a low energy effective theory of the pseudogap state

We have now elucidated the nature of the coupling of our two gauge fields, $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$, to TF and have specified their “bare” thermal and quantum dynamics encoded in $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ (36,45). To make further progress toward our ultimate goal of describing the low energy fermiology in the pseudogap state, we now focus our attention on the nodal quasiparticle excitations of the Hamiltonian $`^{}`$ Eq. (6). This will enable us to apply the machinery of perturbative RG to nodal (massless) TF and rid our effective theory of all remaining excess baggage.

### III.1 Farewell to $`v_\mu `$ and residual interactions

As indicated in Fig. 2, the low energy quasiparticles are located at the four nodal points of the $`d_{xy}`$ gap function: $`𝐤_{1,\overline{1}}=(\pm k_F,0)`$ and $`𝐤_{2,\overline{2}}=(0,\pm k_F)`$, hereafter denoted as $`(1,\overline{1})`$ and $`(2,\overline{2})`$ respectively.

To focus on the leading low energy behavior of the fermionic excitations near the nodes we follow the standard procedure simon1  and linearize the Lagrangian (10). To this end we write our TF spinor $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ as a sum of 4 nodal fermi fields,

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}=e^{i𝐤_1𝐫}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_1+e^{i𝐤_{\overline{1}}𝐫}\sigma _2\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\overline{1}}+e^{i𝐤_2𝐫}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2+e^{i𝐤_{\overline{2}}𝐫}\sigma _2\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\overline{2}}.$$
(46)
The $`\sigma _2`$ matrices have been inserted here for convenience: they insure that we eventually recover the conventional form of the QED3 Lagrangian. (Without the $`\sigma _2`$ matrices the Dirac velocities at $`\overline{1},\overline{2}`$ nodes would have been negative.) Inserting $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ into (10) and systematically neglecting the higher order derivatives simon1 , we obtain the nodal Lagrangian of the form

$`_D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=1,\overline{1}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l^{}[D_\tau +iv_FD_x\sigma _3+iv_\mathrm{\Delta }D_y\sigma _1]\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l=2,\overline{2}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l^{}[D_\tau +iv_FD_y\sigma _3+iv_\mathrm{\Delta }D_x\sigma _1]\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l+_0[a_\mu ],`$
where $`D_\mu =_\mu +ia_\mu `$ denotes the covariant derivative and $`_0[a_\mu ]`$ isgiven by (45):

$$_0[a_\mu ]=\frac{1}{2}K_\mu (\times a)_\mu ^2\frac{1}{2e_\mu ^2}(\times a)_\mu ^2.$$
(48)
$`v_F=ϵ_𝐤/𝐤`$ denotes the Fermi velocity at the node and $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤/𝐤`$ denotes the gap velocity. Note that $`v_F`$ and $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ already contain renormalizations coming from high energy interactions and are effective material parameters of our theory. Similarly, $`K_\mu =1/e_\mu ^2`$, derived in the previous section in terms of $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}(x,T)`$, are treated as adjustable parameters which are matched to experimentally available information on the range of superconducting correlations in the pseudogap state.

Doppler gauge field $`v_\mu `$ has disappeared from the above expression. After informing us on how to properly “coarse-grain” the theory and dressing our Z2-valued Berry gauge field in its ultimate U(1) Maxwellian outfit, the time has come to drop $`v_\mu `$, its eventual demise caused by the Meissner coupling to BdG fermions discussed in the previous section. After being “screened” by high energy and nodal TFs it is rendered massive both in the superconducting and pseudogap states and unimportant for low energy physics. Its legacy lives on, however, having given birth to the U(1) non-compact character of $`a_\mu `$.

In contrast, Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$ remains massless in the pseudogap state, as it cannot acquire mass by coupling to the fermions. As seen from Eq. (III.1) $`a_\mu `$ couples minimally to the Dirac fermions and therefore its massless character is protected by gauge invariance. Physically, one can also argue that $`a_\mu `$ couples to the TF spin three-current – in a spin-singlet d-wave superconductor SU(2) spin symmetry must remain unbroken, thereby insuring that $`a_\mu `$ remains massless. Its massless Maxwellian dynamics (48) in the pseudogap state can therefore be traced back to the topological state of spacetime vortex loops and directly reflect the absence of true superconducting order (Section II) or, equivalently, the presence of “vortex loop condensate” and dual order (Appendix A).

We have also dispensed with the residual interactions represented by $`_{\mathrm{res}}`$ in (2). These interactions are generically short-ranged contributions from the p-h and amplitude fluctuations part of the p-p channel and in our new notation are exemplified by:

$$_{\mathrm{res}}\frac{1}{2}\underset{l,l^{}}{}I_{ll^{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l^{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l^{}.$$
(49)
The effective vertex $`I_{ll^{}}`$ has a scaling dimension $`1`$ at the engineering level. This follows from the RG analysis near the massless Dirac points which sets the dimension of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_l`$ to $`[\mathrm{length}]^1`$. The implication is that $`I_{ll^{}}`$ is irrelevant for low energy physics in the perturbative RG sense and we are therefore well within our rights in setting $`I_{ll^{}}0`$. However, the residual interactions will not go so quietly into the night: such interactions are known to become important if stronger than some critical value $`I_c`$ gusynin1 ; reenders . In the present theory, this is bound to happen in the severely underdoped regime and at half-filling, as $`x0`$ tvfqed . In this case, the residual interactions are becoming large and comparable in scale to the pairing pseudogap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and are likely to cause chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) which leads to spontaneous mass generation for massless Dirac fermions. The CSB and its variety of patterns in the context of the theory (III.1,48) in underdoped cuprates were discussed in herbut1 ; tvfqed  and are the subject of Part II of this paper. Here, where we have limited ourselves to the chirally symmetric phase, we assume $`I_{ll^{}}<I_c`$, which we expect to be the case for moderate underdoping, and set $`I_{ll^{}}0`$.

In the end, we are left with (III.1,48) as our effective low energy theory for nodal TF. This theory, derived previously in Ref. ftqed , is the chief dynamical muscle behind the physics discussed in this paper. It describes the problem of massless topological fermions interacting with massless vortex “Beryons”, i.e. the quanta of the Berry gauge field $`a_\mu `$, and is formally equivalent to the Euclidean quantum electrodynamics of massless Dirac fermions in (2+1) dimensions (QED3). It, however, suffers from an intrinsic Dirac anisotropy by virtue of $`v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

### III.2 QED3 Lagrangian for the pseudogap state

We are now in position to do some real calculations within our theory. Before we plunge into the algebra, however, we first apply some cosmetics: Lagrangian (III.1) is not in the standard from as used in quantum electrodynamics where the matrices associated with the components of covariant derivatives form a Dirac algebra and mutually anticommute. In (III.1) the temporal derivative is associated with unit matrix and it therefore commutes (rather than anticommutes) with $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _3`$ matrices associated with the spatial derivatives. These nonstandard commutation relations, however, lead to some rather unwieldy algebra. For this reason we manipulate the Lagrangian (III.1) into a slightly different form that is consistent with usual field-theoretic notation. First, we combine each pair of antipodal (time reversed) two-component spinors into one 4-component spinor,

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_1=\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_1\\ \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\overline{1}}\end{array}\right),\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_2=\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_2\\ \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{\overline{2}}\end{array}\right).$$
(50)
Second, we define a new adjoint four-component spinor

$$\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_l=i\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_l^{}\gamma _0.$$
(51)
In terms of this new spinor the Lagrangian becomes

$$_D=\underset{l=1,2}{}\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_l\gamma _\mu D_\mu ^{(l)}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_l+\frac{1}{2}K_\mu (\times a)_\mu ^2,$$
(52)
with covariant derivatives

$`D_\mu ^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`i[(_\tau +ia_\tau ),v_F(_x+ia_x),v_\mathrm{\Delta }(_y+ia_y)],`$
$`D_\mu ^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`i[(_\tau +ia_\tau ),v_F(_y+ia_y),v_\mathrm{\Delta }(_x+ia_x)].`$
The $`4\times 4`$ gamma matrices, defined as

$`\gamma _0`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma _2& 0\\ 0& \sigma _2\end{array}\right),\gamma _1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma _1& 0\\ 0& \sigma _1\end{array}\right),`$ (57)
$`\gamma _2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\sigma _3& 0\\ 0& \sigma _3\end{array}\right)`$ (60)
now form the usual Dirac algebra,

$$\{\gamma _\mu ,\gamma _\nu \}=2\delta _{\mu \nu }$$
(61)
and furthermore satisfy

$$\mathrm{Tr}(\gamma _\mu )=0,\mathrm{Tr}(\gamma _\mu \gamma _\nu )=4\delta _{\mu \nu }.$$
(62)
The use of the adjoint spinor $`\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}`$ instead of conventional $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}`$ is a purely formal device which will simplify calculations but does not alter the physical content of the theory. At the end of the calculation we have to remember to undo the transformation (51) by multiplying the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(x)\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}(x^{})`$ correlator by $`i\gamma _0`$ to obtain the physical correlator $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(x)\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{}(x^{})`$.

Next, to make the formalism simpler still we can eliminate the asymmetry between the two pairs of nodes by performing an internal SU(2) rotation at nodes 2, $`\overline{2}`$:

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_2e^{i\frac{\pi }{4}\gamma _0}\gamma _1\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_2,$$
(63)
leading to the anisotropic QED3 Lagrangian

$$_D=\underset{l=1,2}{}\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_lv_\mu ^{(l)}\gamma _\mu (i_\mu a_\mu )\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_l+\frac{1}{2}K_\mu (\times a)_\mu ^2,$$
(64)
with $`v_\mu ^{(1)}=(1,v_F,v_\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and $`v_\mu ^{(2)}=(1,v_\mathrm{\Delta },v_F)`$.

## IV Spectral properties of topological fermions and physical electrons in QED3

We shall start by considering the isotropic case, $`v_F=v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$, which although unphysical in the strictest sense, is computationally much simpler and provides penetrating insights into the physics embodied by the QED3 Lagrangian (64). After we have understood the isotropic case we will then be ready to tackle the calculation for the general case and will show that Dirac cone anisotropy does not modify the essential physics discussed here. To make contact with standard literature on QED3, we further consider a more general problem with $`N`$ pairs of nodes described by Lagrangian

$$_D=\underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}_l\gamma _\mu (i_\mu a_\mu )\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_l+\frac{1}{2}K_\mu (\times a)_\mu ^2.$$
(65)
For the basic problem of a single CuO2 layer $`N=2`$. As we will show in the next section, $`N`$ itself is variable and can be equal to four or six in bi- and multi-layer cuprates. Our analytic results can be viewed as arising from the formal $`1/N`$ expansion, although we expect them to be qualitatively (and even quantitatively!) accurate even for $`N=2`$ as long as we are within the symmetric phase of QED3 – the quantitative accuracy stems from a fortuitous conspiracy of small numerical prefactors gusynin1 .

### IV.1 Berryon propagator

Ultimately, we are interested in the properties of physical electrons. To describe those we need to understand the properties of the electron–electron interaction mediated by the gauge field $`a_\mu `$. To this end we proceed to calculate the Berry gauge field propagator by integrating out the fermion degrees

of freedom from the Lagrangian (65). To one loop order this corresponds to evaluating the vacuum polarization bubble Fig. 3(a). Employing the standard rules for Feynman diagrams in the momentum space peskin  the vacuum polarization reads:

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q)=N\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{Tr}[G_0(k)\gamma _\mu G_0(k+q)\gamma _\nu ].$$
(66)
Here $`G_0(k)=k_\alpha \gamma _\alpha /k^2`$ is the free Dirac Green function, $`k=(k_0,𝐤)`$ denotes the Euclidean three-momentum, and the trace is performed over the $`\gamma `$ matrices.

The integral in Eq. (66) is a standard one (see Appendix for the details of computation) and the result is

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q)=\frac{N}{8}|q|\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}\right),$$
(67)
where $`|q|=\sqrt{q^2}`$. The one loop effective action for the Berry gauge field therefore becomes $`(2\pi )^3d^3q_B`$ with

$$_B[a]=\left(\frac{N}{8}|q|+\frac{1}{2e^2}q^2\right)\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}\right)a_\mu (q)a_\nu (q).$$
(68)
At low energies and long wavelengths, $`|q|e^2N/4`$, the fermion polarization completely overwhelms the original Maxwell bare action term and the Berryon properties become universal. In particular, the coupling constant $`1/e^2`$ drops out at low energies and only reappears as the ultraviolet cutoff. Physically, the medium of massless Dirac fermions screens the long range interactions mediated by $`a_\mu `$. In QED3 this screening is incomplete: the gauge field becomes stiffer by one power of $`q`$ but still remains massless, in accordance with our general expectations. This anomalous stiffness of $`a_\mu `$ justifies the quadratic level expansion of $`_0`$ (45) and renders higher order terms irrelevant in the RG sense. The theory therefore clears an important self-consistency check.

At low energies the fully dressed Berryon propagator is given as an inverse of the polarization,

$$D_{\mu \nu }(q)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^1(q).$$
(69)
In order to perform this inversion we have to fix the gauge. To this end we implement the usual gauge fixing procedure by replacing $`q_\mu q_\nu /q^2(1\xi ^1)q_\mu q_\nu /q^2`$ in Eq. (67). $`\xi 0`$ parametrizes the orbit of all covariant gauges. For example, $`\xi =0`$ corresponds to Lorentz gauge $`k_\mu a_\mu (k)=0`$ while $`\xi =1`$ corresponds to Feynman gauge. Upon inversion we obtain the low energy Berryon propagator

$$D_{\mu \nu }(q)=\frac{8}{|q|N}\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}(1\xi )\right),$$
(70)
in agreement with previous authors kim .

### IV.2 TF self energy and propagator

TF propagator is a gauge dependent entity and one could therefore immediately object that as such it has no direct physical content and is of no interest. Such viewpoint, while expressed frequently, is actually quite naive. The reality is that in gauge theories various gauge-variant objects can often be connected to physical gauge-invariant quantities when computed within a particular choice of gauge. In practice, a rather typical occurrence is that a gauge-invariant physical propagator is given by a hugely non-local form which is basically impossible to compute except in a judiciously chosen gauge where it is related to a much simpler, and therefore far easier to compute, gauge-variant propagator. Consequently, a gauge-variant propagator computed along a particular gauge orbit often contains relevant information about the true dynamics of a gauge theory – the trick is to know how to extract this information.

This general statement holds in the case of QED3 as well. TF propagator evaluated in an arbitrary covariant gauge parametrized by $`\xi `$ contains useful information about the nature of the fermionic excitations of the system. We will show that its coupling to the massless gauge field destroys the usual Fermi liquid pole and results in the propagator displaying a Luttinger-like behavior, characterized by a small anomalous dimension. In the next subsection we argue that the physical electron propagator of our theory, which can be related to a particular gauge invariant fermion propagator of QED3, exhibits the same Luttinger-like behavior.

The lowest order self-energy diagram is depicted in Fig. 3(b) and reads

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(k)=\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}D_{\mu \nu }(q)\gamma _\mu G_0(k+q)\gamma _\nu .$$
(71)
Again, the computation is rather straightforward (see Appendix for details) and the most divergent part is

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(k)=\frac{4(23\xi )}{3\pi ^2N}\overline{)}k\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{|k|}\right),$$
(72)
where we have introduced the Feynman “slash” notation, $`\overline{)}k=k_\mu \gamma _\mu `$.

To the leading $`1/N`$ order, the inverse TF propagator is given by

$$G^1(k)=\overline{)}k\left[1+\eta \mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{|k|}\right)\right]$$
(73)
with

$$\eta =\frac{4(23\xi )}{3\pi ^2N}.$$
(74)
Higher order contributions in $`1/N`$ will necessarily affect this result. Renormalization group arguments maris  and non-perturbative approaches pennington  strongly suggest that Eq. (73) represents the start of a perturbative series that eventually resums into a power law:

$$G^1(k)=\overline{)}k\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{|k|}\right)^\eta .$$
(75)
This implies real-space propagator of the form

$$G(r)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^\eta \frac{\overline{)}r}{r^{3+\eta }}.$$
(76)
Thus, the TF propagator exhibits a Luttinger-like algebraic singularity at small momenta, characterized by an anomalous exponent $`\eta `$. In the Lorentz gauge ($`\xi =0`$) we find $`\eta =8/3\pi ^2N0.13`$, for $`N=2`$. This rather small numerical value for the anomalous dimension exponent (which is even considerably smaller for $`N=4`$ or $`N=6`$) indicates that the unraveling of the Fermi liquid pole in the original TF propagator brought about by its interaction with the massless Berry gauge field is in a certain sense “weak”. Note also that $`\eta `$ is negative in the Lorentz gauge while it becomes positive, $`\eta =4/3\pi ^2N0.06`$ for $`N=2`$, in the Feynman gauge ($`\xi =1`$). The above results provide a strong indication that the physical, gauge-invariant fermion propagator also has a Luttinger-like form, characterized by a small and positive anomalous dimension ftqed . We now show that this indeed is the case.

### IV.3 Physical electron propagator

Various spectroscopies on cuprates, such as ARPES and STM, as well as numerous optical and microwave techniques, all measure the spectral function of a real physical electron, not of TF. Therefore, we are ultimately interested in computing the propagator of the physical electron in our theory,

$$G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})=\mathrm{\Psi }(x)\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x^{}),$$
(77)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ is the original electron field operator appearing in (1) (the reader should recall that this operator already contains high-energy renormalizations built in at the very beginning). If we define a matrix

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}(x)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}e^{i\phi _A(x)}& 0\\ 0& e^{i\phi _B(x)}\end{array}\right),$$
(78)
we can write $`G^{\mathrm{elec}}`$ in terms of TF fields as

$$G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})=\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}(x)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(x^{})\widehat{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{}(x^{}).$$
(79)
Ordinary spectroscopies reflect the diagonal part of the electron propagator

$$[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{11}=e^{i[\phi _A(x)\phi _A(x^{})]}[\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(x^{})]_{11},$$
(80)
and similar expression for $`[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{22}`$. We may recast this in a more convenient form by writing the phase difference in the exponent as a line integral of a gradient along a straight line connecting $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$,

$$\phi _A(x)\phi _A(x^{})_x^x^{}_\mu \phi _Ads_\mu ,$$
(81)
and then expressing the phase gradient in terms of the two gauge fields $`a_\mu `$ and $`v_\mu `$:

$$[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{11}=e^{i_x^x^{}(v_\mu +a_\mu )𝑑s_\mu }[\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(x^{})]_{11},$$
(82)
This expression only involves the coarse-grained Doppler and Berry gauge fields and TF, which are precisely the fields that enter our effective low-energy theory, and is therefore amenable to analysis. Note that (82) is only a long-distance approximation to the exact electron propagator (80) which is defined through discrete vortex variables entering via $`\phi _A`$ ($`\phi _B`$).

As discussed earlier, the Doppler gauge field $`v_\mu `$ is massive in both normal and superconducting phases and therefore its fluctuations will not affect the low energy, long wavelength properties of the electron propagator. We may thus remove it from the line integral Eq. (82) and focus on the quantity

$$𝒢(xx^{})=e^{i_x^x^{}a_\mu 𝑑s_\mu }\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(x)\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}(x^{}).$$
(83)
By considering the transformation properties of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(x)`$ under the gauge transformations with respect to $`a_\mu `$ it is easy to verify that $`𝒢(xx^{})`$ is gauge invariant. This quantity therefore represents a gauge invariant propagator of QED3 theory (52) and its knowledge allows us to reconstruct the diagonal components of the electron propagator by means of

$$[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{ii}=[i\gamma _0𝒢(xx^{})]_{ii}$$
(84)
It seems natural to attempt to relate the components of the above gauge invariant propagator to the physical electron propagator, since the latter by definition must be gauge invariant under the transformations of the internal gauge field $`a_\mu `$.

The question arises how to evaluate the gauge invariant propagator $`𝒢(xx^{})`$. This turns out to be a non-trivial issue since, despite its pleasing manifest invariance under gauge and spacetime symmetries, (83) also exhibits a severe (linear) ultraviolet divergence arising from the straight line integral of the gauge field. This renders it ill-defined in absence of some proper regularization (see below for more details). Here we adopt the approach discussed by Brown brown1 ; boulaware  in the context of QED4. Brown proves that the following relation exists between gauge invariant propagator $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ and gauge dependent propagator $`G`$ remark1  (see also Appendix C):

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)=e^{F(r)}G(r),$$
(85)
where $`r=xx^{}`$ and

$$F(r)=\frac{1}{2}d^3zd^3z^{}J_\mu (z)D_{\mu \nu }(zz^{})J_\nu (z^{}),$$
(86)
with

$$J_\mu (z)=r_\mu _0^1𝑑\alpha \delta (zx^{}\alpha r)$$
(87)
representing the source term for the line integral in Eq. (83). In the above $`G(r)`$ and $`D_{\mu \nu }(r)`$ refer to the real space gauge dependent fermion and Berryon propagators respectively, obtained by Fourier transforming the expressions (75) and (70). By definition, both are to be computed in covariant gauge. Brown’s result Eq. (85) is an explicit statement of the fact that one can construct two gauge invariant propagators by using the line integral of the gauge field, $`𝒢`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$. This is a rather general feature of Abelian gauge theories boulaware  and is easily generalized to QED3. $`𝒢`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ can be formally related through a gauge transformation (see Appendix C) and one might think of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ as representing suitably regularized $`𝒢`$ regularization . Alternatively, we can simply think of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ as being another QED3 fermion propagator invariant under gauge and spacetime symmetries just like $`𝒢`$. We discuss the details pertaining to Eq. (85) in the Appendix C.

To calculate $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)`$ from Eq. (85) we need to evaluate $`F(r)`$. We proceed by first performing the $`z`$, $`z^{}`$ integrals to obtain

$$F(r)=\frac{1}{2}_0^1𝑑\alpha _0^1𝑑\beta r_\mu D_{\mu \nu }(r(\alpha \beta ))r_\nu ,$$
(88)
By power counting the expression for $`F(r)`$ suffers from linear UV divergence reflecting the singular behavior of the gauge field line integral at short distances. This singularity is the main reason why direct computation of (83) is such a frustrating task, despite its deceivingly compact and elegant form. A typical scheme to regularize this linear UV divergence interferes with gauge invariance and corrupts the effort to extract the true physical part of (83) which we expect to be scale-invariant. The advantage of Brown’s approach (85) is twofold: it permits computation of a gauge invariant propagator $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ in the covariant gauge where the UV divergence can be treated with the help of dimensional regularization, which respects the gauge invariance and preserves the long wavelength, low energy properties of the physical propagators, and the offending linear part of the UV divergence cancels out between numerator and denominator in a gauge invariant manner (Appendix C). This allows us to extract a meaningful power law behavior for $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$. To take advantage of dimensional regularization we express $`𝒫(r)r_\mu D_{\mu \nu }(r)r_\nu `$ as a Fourier transform in $`d`$-dimensions,

$$𝒫(r)=\frac{8}{N}\frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{e^{ikr}}{k}\left[r^2(1\xi )\frac{(kr)^2}{k^2}\right],$$
(89)
and treat $`d`$ as a continuous variable. This Fourier transform is evaluated in the Appendix, giving the result

$$𝒫(r)=\frac{4}{N}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)}{\pi ^{\frac{d+1}{2}}}[1+(d2)(1\xi )]r^{3d}.$$
(90)
Substituting $`𝒫(r(\alpha \beta ))`$ into Eq. (88) and performing the remaining integrals by means of

$$_0^1𝑑\alpha _0^1𝑑\beta |\alpha \beta |^\zeta =\frac{2}{(\zeta +1)(\zeta +2)},$$
(91)
we find, near $`d=3`$,

$`F(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4(2\xi )}{N\pi ^2}}\underset{d3}{lim}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r^{3d}}{3d}}\right)`$ (92)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4(2\xi )}{N\pi ^2}}\left[\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }r)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3d}}\right]_{d3}.`$
The UV divergence is now parametrized by the ($`r`$-independent) second term in the angular brackets. The leading long-distance behavior is contained in the log, implying a power law contribution $`e^{F(r)}r^{4(2\xi )/N\pi ^2}`$ to the gauge invariant propagator $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)`$. Combining (92) with (76) we obtain remark2

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^\eta ^{}\frac{\overline{)}r}{r^{3+\eta ^{}}},$$
(93)
or in the momentum space

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(k)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^\eta ^{}\frac{\overline{)}k}{k^{2\eta ^{}}},$$
(94)
where the anomalous dimension exponent $`\eta ^{}`$ is given by

$$\eta ^{}=\eta +\frac{4(2\xi )}{N\pi ^2}=\frac{16}{3\pi ^2N}.$$
(95)
The last equation informs us that in the exponent $`\eta ^{}`$ the gauge fixing parameter $`\xi `$ has canceled out and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)`$ is indeed gauge invariant. We have thus verified, by explicit calculation to leading order in $`1/N`$, that Eq. (85) yields a gauge invariant TF propagator which we can connect to the physical electron propagator by means of Eq. (84) with $`𝒢\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$.

An interesting feature of the above result is that for $`\xi =2`$ we have $`F(r)=0`$. In the QED literature this is known as “Yennie’s gauge” and its significance is that in this particular gauge the diagonal components of the TF propagator are directly equal to $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)`$. In Yennie’s gauge one can therefore evaluate various electron observables in terms of TF propagator without worrying about the exponential factors. This is just the situation we have anticipated in the previous subsection. One could also define an “anti-Yennie’s gauge” (or a “non-local gauge” as it is known in the QED3 literature), $`\xi =\frac{2}{3}`$, in which $`\eta =0`$ and the effect of the gauge field fluctuations on $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(r)`$ is contained entirely in $`F(r)`$. To leading order in $`1/N`$ this observation further solidifies the expectation that the leading log in the self energy indeed exponentiates and the low energy, long lengthscale propagator behaves as a power law.

Another important feature to observe is that $`\eta ^{}>0`$ – the electron has acquired a positive anomalous dimension. The positivity of $`\eta ^{}`$ is mandatory from general considerations – once we perform the Euclidean rotation and obtain the real time electron propagator the conditions of unitarity and causality of our original problem demand $`\eta ^{}>0`$. This is also a physically sensible result implying that the interacting electron propagator (93) decays on long lengthscales faster than the free BdG electron propagator. Interaction mediated by the massless gauge field destabilizes the Fermi liquid pole in the original propagator and leads to Luttinger liquid-like power law fermionic correlator in the low energy, long wavelength limit – this is our algebraic Fermi liquid (AFL), a non-Fermi liquid symmetric phase which governs the physics of the pseudogap state. The positivity of $`\eta ^{}`$ means that the interacting AFL propagator is less coherent than the free BdG electron propagator which is just what one expects on intuitive grounds. We therefore propose that $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ be identified as the true electron propagator in our theory.

The Luttinger-like electron propagator that follows from (94) leads to a characteristic asymmetry between the energy and momentum distribution curves (EDC and MDC) observed in ARPES experiments valla  (note that, within our theory, this behavior is limited to the pseudogap state) – the MDC is a very sharp Lorentzian close to the Fermi surface while EDC is broad, reflecting decoherence of physical electrons in the pseudogap state ftqed ). This decoherence is relatively weak with the explicit value of $`\eta ^{}0.27`$ for the case of an individual CuO2 layer where $`N=2`$. In bi-layer or multi-layer systems $`N`$ could be four, six or even higher and $`\eta ^{}`$ is even smaller. The reason for this increase in $`N`$ is the anisotropy of the tunneling matrix element between the constituent CuO2 planes within a multi-layer unit cell. This matrix element effectively vanishes near the nodes, along $`(\pm \pi ,\pm \pi )`$ directions, but is appreciable elsewhere in the Brillouin zone andersen . The result is that low energy BdG fermions on different constituent CuO2 layers remain decoupled while the vortex excitations on these same layers are strongly coupled within the unit cell of a multi-layer, since their coupling comes from an integral over the full Brillouin zone. This translates to a larger effective $`N`$ in our QED3 (65) and to a corresponding reduction in the anomalous dimension: $`\eta ^{}0.13`$ for $`N=4`$ (bi-layer like YBCO) or $`\eta ^{}0.09`$ for $`N=6`$ (tri-layer like HgBa2Ca2Cu3O8). The actual numerical value of the anomalous dimension exponent $`\eta ^{}`$ is the “fingerprint”, a unique mathematical signature of the symmetric phase of QED3 and therefore of the algebraic Fermi liquid (AFL) state within the pseudogap regime of underdoped cuprates. Determining $`\eta ^{}`$ directly from experiments, either through various spectroscopies or transport measurements, would be a major step toward testing theoretical ideas expressed in this paper.

The exponent $`\eta ^{}`$ of the physical electron propagator had come under much scrutiny as of late since several effective theories related to QED3 emerged recently in condensed matter physics, in problems like Heisenberg antiferromagnets or spin liquids. While in each case the physical content of these multiple reincarnations of QED3 differs completely from the one discussed in the present paper and from each other, the issue of the gauge invariant QED3 fermion propagator and the value of $`\eta ^{}`$ loom large in all these different contexts, for obvious reasons. In particular, $`\eta ^{}`$ has been calculated recently by Rantner and Wen rantner1 ; rantner2  and also by Khveshchenko khvesh1 . The former authors obtain $`\eta ^{}=32/3\pi ^2N`$ remark4  by performing a calculation of $`𝒢`$ in the so-called axial gauge leibrandt , in which the line integral of the gauge field in Eq. (83) is taken to vanish for a particular direction in the real space. Negative anomalous dimension $`\eta ^{}<0`$ would imply that the interacting electron propagator is more coherent at long distances than the propagator of a free electron and this is prohibited on general grounds, as discussed above. For example, negative $`\eta ^{}`$ produces divergent electronic density of states and leads to unphysical singular behavior in various thermodynamic and transport quantities. Thus, negative anomalous dimension for the physical electron should be, in our view, rejected out of hand. For reader’s benefit, we should stress that we believe that the calculations carried out in Refs. rantner1 ; rantner2 ; khvesh1  are perfectly correct, in the sense that $`\eta ^{}=32/3\pi ^2N`$ indeed follows from the algebra once we adopt the axial gauge regularization of (83) as implemented in rantner1 ; rantner2  and perform the calculation with logarithmic accuracy; we have done such a calculation ourselves and have obtained the same result. Operationally, the problem with computation of $`𝒢`$ (83) is not in the algebra but resides in the physical interpretation of the obtained results. In the axial gauge regularization followed by the momentum space computation employed by the authors of Refs. rantner1 ; rantner2 , the negative value for $`\eta ^{}`$ arises from the treatment of spurious gauge singularities that are invariably introduced by writing the gauge boson propagator in the axial gauge leibrandt . These singularities then must be regularized in some way and this is done using an ad hoc principal value prescription for momentum space integrals. The problem with this prescription is that the momentum space propagator in the axial gauge does not exist zwanziger . Axial gauge is an example of a singularly non-covariant gauge (like Coulomb, temporal or similar gauges) and as such does not fully fix the gauge. The gauge transformations which are independent of the spacetime variable $`x_1`$ singled out by the axial gauge but have arbitrary dependence on the remaining $`d1`$ variables $`(x_2,x_3,\mathrm{})`$ are still allowed and cost no energy. Consequently, the gauge-variant two-point fermion propagator $`G(𝐱,𝐱^{})`$ must vanish whenever $`x_2x_2^{}`$, $`x_3x_3^{}`$, $`\mathrm{}`$ zwanziger . The same problem resurfaces in a different form when one computes (83) directly in the covariant gauge melikyan : the expectation value of the transverse part ($`\xi =0`$) of the line integral, $`\mathrm{exp}(i_x^x^{}a_\mu 𝑑s_\mu )`$, decouples from the rest of the expression. In fact, the result $`\eta ^{}=32/3\pi ^2N`$ is easily understood as arising from the TF propagator in the Lorentz gauge $`G_{\xi =0}`$ ($`\eta _L=8/3\pi ^2N`$) being made more coherent through simply being multiplied by the said expectation value of the transverse part of line integral ($`\eta ^{}=\eta _L+\eta _t`$ where $`\eta _t=8/\pi ^2N`$ from the above computation of $`F`$, with $`\xi =0`$). Since $`\mathrm{exp}(i_x^x^{}a_\mu 𝑑s_\mu )_{\xi =0}`$ is an expectation value of a phase factor, this is clearly a troubling result – such a multiplicative factor can make the full propagator only less coherent than $`G_{\xi =0}`$ as $`|xx^{}|\mathrm{}`$. The problem is that the transverse part of the line integral is more divergent than just a simple $`\mathrm{log}r`$ appearing in the exponent. When the dominant (linear) divergence is included, the full propagator $`𝒢`$ is exponentially suppressed ($`\eta +\mathrm{}`$) and cannot be computed without some physically motivated UV regularization scheme regularization .

We have also carried out our own calculation in the axial gauge using a different regularization scheme and obtained different (negative) exponent $`\eta ^{}=16/3\pi ^2N`$. We are thus forced to conclude that the axial gauge calculations yield values of $`\eta ^{}`$ that are regularization scheme dependent, and are therefore inherently unreliable. By contrast no such ambiguities arise when employing Eq. (85) and the computation of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ yields physically reasonable positive anomalous dimension given by Eq. (95).

We now discuss the off-diagonal (anomalous) components of the electron propagator. According to Eq. (78) we have

$$[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{12}=e^{i[\phi _A(x)+\phi _B(x^{})]}[\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^{}(x^{})]_{12},$$
(96)
and similar expression for $`[G^{\mathrm{elec}}(xx^{})]_{21}`$. It is now less straightforward to interpret the phase factor in terms of our gauge fields $`a_\mu `$ and $`v_\mu `$. One way to do this is to add and subtract $`\phi _A(x^{})`$ and write

$`\phi _A(x)+\phi _B(x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`[\phi _A(x)\phi _A(x^{})]+[\phi _A(x^{})+\phi _B(x^{})]`$ (97)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _x^x^{}}(v_\mu +a_\mu )𝑑s_\mu +2{\displaystyle _0^x^{}}v_\mu 𝑑s_\mu .`$
The first term on the right hand side is just like the one we encountered in our discussion of the diagonal propagator. The second term, however, involves a line integral of $`v_\mu `$ originating at an arbitrary fixed reference point in space-time. In the non-superconducting phase fluctuations in $`v_\mu `$ will clearly drive any such term to zero, making the off-diagonal terms of the electron propagator vanish. This is consistent with our general expectation that electron propagator does not exhibit anomalous off-diagonal correlations in the normal state.

Finally, pulling different strands together, we can write down the full electron Green function in the AFL phase of the pseudogap state. To make connection with the notation prevalent in the condensed matter physics we perform a Euclidean rotation $`k_0i\omega `$ in Eq. (94) and with help of Eq. (84) we obtain

$$G^{\mathrm{elec}}(𝐤,\omega )=\mathrm{\Lambda }^\eta ^{}\frac{\omega +\sigma _3ϵ_𝐤}{[ϵ_𝐤^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^2\omega ^2]^{1\eta ^{}/2}},$$
(98)
where we have also restored the full electron dispersion $`ϵ_𝐤`$ and the gap function $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ with the understanding that the above form for the propagator is strictly valid only in the vicinity of the nodal point and close to the isotropic limit. We note that the Eq. (98) implies an anomalous electron density of states

$$N(\omega )\omega ^{1+\eta ^{}}$$
(99)
at low energies. It would be very interesting if such anomalous electron density of states could be measured in tunneling experiments. Similarly, the Luttinger-like behavior of the propagator Eq. (98) will be reflected in other physical observables.

## V Effects of Dirac anisotropy in symmetric QED3

It is natural to examine to what extend is the theory modified by the inclusion of the Dirac anisotropy, i.e. the finite difference in the Fermi velocity $`v_F`$ and the gap velocity $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In the actual materials the Dirac anisotropy $`\alpha _D=\frac{v_F}{v_\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ decreases with decreasing doping from $`15`$ in the optimally doped to $`3`$ in the heavily underdoped samples.

There are two key issues: first, for a large enough number of Dirac fermion species $`N`$, how is the chirally symmetric infrared (IR) fixed point modified by the fact that $`\alpha _D1`$, and second, as we decrease $`N`$, does the chiral symmetry breaking occur at the same value of $`N`$ as in the isotropic theory. In this section we address in detail the first issue and defer the discussion of the second one to Part II.

We determine the effect of the Dirac anisotropy, marginal by power counting, by the perturbative renormalization group (RG) to first order in the large $`N`$ expansion. To the leading order $`\delta `$ in the small anisotropy $`\alpha _D=1+\delta `$, we obtain the analytic value of the RG $`\beta _{\alpha _D}`$-function and find that it is proportional to $`\delta `$, i.e. in the infra red the $`\alpha _D`$ decreases when $`\delta >0`$ and the anisotropic theory flows to the isotropic fixed point. On the other hand, when $`\delta <0`$, $`\alpha _D`$ increases in the IR and again the theory flows into the isotropic fixed point. These results hold even when anisotropy is not small as shown by numerical evaluation of the $`\beta `$-function. Therefore, we conclude that the isotropic fixed point is stable against small anisotropy.

Furthermore, we show that in any covariant gauge renormalization of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ due to the unphysical longitudinal degrees of freedom is exactly the same along any space-time direction. Therefore the only contribution to the RG flow of anisotropy comes from the physical degrees of freedom and our results for $`\beta _{\alpha _D}`$ stated above are in fact gauge invariant.

### V.1 Anisotropic QED3

In the realm of condensed matter physics there is no Lorentz symmetry to safeguard the space-time isotropy of the theory. Rather, the intrinsic Dirac anisotropy is always present since it ultimately arises from complicated microscopic interactions in the solid which eventually renormalize to band and pairing amplitude dispersion. Thus there is nothing to protect the difference in the Fermi velocity $`v_F=\frac{ϵ_𝐤}{𝐤}`$ and the gap velocity $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤}{𝐤}`$ from vanishing and, in fact, all HTS materials are anisotropic.

The value of $`\alpha _D`$ can be directly measured by the angle resolved photo-emission spectroscopy (ARPES), which is ultimately a ”high” energy local probe of $`v_F`$ and $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Since QED3 is free on short distances, we can take the experimental values as the starting bare parameters of the field theory.

The pairing amplitude of the HTS cuprates has $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry, and consequently there are four nodal points on the Fermi surface with Dirac dispersion around which we can linearize the theory. Note that the roles of $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions are interchanged between adjacent nodes. As before, we combine the four two-component Dirac spinors for the opposite (time reversed) nodes into two four-components spinors and label them as $`(1,\overline{1})`$ and $`(2,\overline{2})`$ (see Fig. 2).

Thus, the two-point vertex function of the non-interacting theory for, say, $`1\overline{1}`$ fermions is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{1\overline{1}}^{(2)free}=\gamma _0k_0+v_F\gamma _1k_1+v_\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma _2k_2.$$
(100)
Therefore the corresponding non-interacting “nodal” Green functions are

$$G_0^n(k)=\frac{\sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \nu }\gamma _\mu k_\nu }{k_\mu g_{\mu \nu }k_\nu }\frac{\gamma _\mu ^nk_\mu }{k_\mu g_{\mu \nu }k_\nu }.$$
(101)
Here we introduced the (diagonal) “nodal” metric $`g_{\mu \nu }^{(n)}`$: $`g_{00}^{(1)}=g_{00}^{(2)}=1`$, $`g_{11}^{(1)}=g_{22}^{(2)}=v_F^2`$, $`g_{22}^{(1)}=g_{11}^{(2)}=v_\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$, as well as the “nodal” $`\gamma `$ matrices $`\gamma ^n`$. In what follows we assume that both $`v_F`$ and $`v_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are dimensionless and that eventually one of them can be chosen to be unity by an appropriate choice of the ”speed of light”.

Since $`\alpha _D1`$ breaks Lorentz invariance of the theory and since it is the Lorentz invariance that protects the spacetime isotropy, we expect the $`\beta `$ functions for $`\alpha _D`$ to acquire finite values. However, the theory still respects time-reversal and parity and for $`N`$ large enough the system is in the chirally symmetric phase. These symmetries force the fermion self-energy of the interacting theory to have the form

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{1\overline{1}}=A(k_{1\overline{1}},k_{2\overline{2}})\left(\gamma _0k_0+v_F\zeta _1\gamma _1k_1+v_\mathrm{\Delta }\zeta _2\gamma _2k_2\right).$$
(102)
where $`k_{1\overline{1}}k_\mu g_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}k_\nu `$ and $`k_{2\overline{2}}k_\mu g_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}k_\nu `$. The coefficients $`\zeta _i`$ are in general different from unity. Furthermore, there is a discrete symmetry which relates flavors $`1,\overline{1}`$ and $`2,\overline{2}`$ and the $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions in such a way that

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{2\overline{2}}=A(k_{2\overline{2}},k_{1\overline{1}})\left(\gamma _0k_0+v_\mathrm{\Delta }\zeta _2\gamma _1k_1+v_F\zeta _1\gamma _2k_2\right).$$
(103)
In the computation of the fermion self-energy, this discrete symmetry allows us to concentrate on a particular pair of nodes without any loss of generality.

### V.2 Gauge field propagator

As discussed above in the isotropic case, the effect of vortex-antivortex fluctuations at T=0 on the fermions can, at large distances, be included by coupling the nodal fermions minimally to a fluctuating $`U(1)`$ gauge field with a standard Maxwell action. Upon integrating out the fermions, the gauge field acquires a stiffness proportional to $`k`$, which is another way of saying that at the charged, chirally symmetric fixed point the gauge field has an anomalous dimension $`\eta _A=1`$ (for discussion of this point in the bosonic QED see herbutzbt ).

We first proceed in the transverse gauge ($`k_\mu a_\mu =0`$) which is in some sense the most physical one considering that the $`\times 𝐚`$ is physically related to the vorticity, i.e. an intrinsically transverse quantity. We later extend our results to a general covariant gauge. To one-loop order the screening effects of the fermions on the gauge field are given by the polarization function

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)=\frac{N}{2}\underset{n=1,2}{}\frac{d^3q}{(2\pi )^3}Tr[G_0^n(q)\gamma _\mu ^nG_0^n(q+k)\gamma _\nu ^n]$$
(104)
where the index $`n`$ denotes the fermion “nodal” flavor. The above expression can be evaluated straightforwardly by noting that it reduces to the isotropic $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)`$ once the integrals are properly rescaled ftqed . The result can be conveniently presented by taking advantage of the “nodal” metric $`g_{\mu \nu }^n`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)=\underset{n}{}\frac{N}{16v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }}\sqrt{k_\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }^nk_\beta }\left(g_{\mu \nu }^n\frac{g_{\mu \rho }^nk_\rho g_{\nu \lambda }^nk_\lambda }{k_\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }^nk_\beta }\right).$$
(105)
Note that this expression is explicitly transverse, $`k_\mu \mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)k_\nu =0`$, and symmetric in its space-time indices. It also properly reduces to the isotropic expression when $`v_F=v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$.

However, as opposed to the isotropic case, it is not quite as straightforward to determine the gauge field propagator $`D_{\mu \nu }`$. For example, as it stands the polarization matrix (105) is not invertible, which makes it necessary to introduce some gauge-fixing conditions. In our case the direct inversion of the $`3\times 3`$ matrix would obscure the analysis and therefore, we choose to follow a more physical and notationally transparent line of reasoning which eventually leads to the correct expression for the gauge field propagator. Upon integrating out the fermions and expanding the effective action to the one-loop order, we find that

$$_{eff}[a_\mu ]=(\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^{(0)}+\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu })a_\mu a_\nu $$
(106)
where the bare gauge field stiffness is

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }^{(0)}=\frac{1}{2e^2}k^2\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right).$$
(107)
At this point we introduce the dual field $`b_\mu `$ which is related to $`a_\mu `$ as

$$b_\mu =ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda }q_\nu a_\lambda .$$
(108)
Physically, the $`b_\mu `$ field represents vorticity and we integrate over all possible vorticity configurations with the restriction that $`b_\mu `$ is transverse. We note that

$$[b_\mu ]=\chi _0b_0^2+\chi _1b_1^2+\chi _2b_2^2$$
(109)
where $`\chi _\mu `$’s are functions of $`k_\mu `$ and upon a straightforward calculation they can be found to read

$$\chi _\mu =\frac{1}{2e^2}+\frac{N}{16v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }}\underset{n=1,2}{}\frac{g_{\nu \nu }^ng_{\lambda \lambda }^n}{\sqrt{k_\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }^nk_\beta }},$$
(110)
where $`\mu \nu \lambda \{0,1,2\}`$. At low energies we can neglect the non-divergent bare stiffness and thus set $`1/e^2=0`$ in the above expression.

The expression (109) is manifestly gauge invariant and has the merit of not only being quadratic but also diagonal in the individual components of $`b_\mu `$. Thus, integration over the vorticity (even with the restriction of transverse $`b_\mu `$) is simple and we can easily determine the $`b_\mu `$ field correlation function

$$b_\mu b_\nu =\frac{\delta _{\mu \nu }}{\chi _\mu }\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{\chi _\mu \chi _\nu }\left(\underset{i}{}\frac{k_i^2}{\chi _i}\right)^1.$$
(111)
The repeated indices are not summed in the above expression. Note that, in addition to being transverse, $`b_\mu b_\nu `$ is also symmetric in its space time indices.

It is now quite simple to determine the correlation function for the $`a_\mu `$ field and in the transverse gauge we obtain

$$D_{\mu \nu }(q)=a_\mu a_\nu =ϵ_{\mu ij}ϵ_{\nu kl}\frac{q_iq_k}{q^4}b_jb_l.$$
(112)
Using the transverse character of $`b_\mu b_\nu `$ (which is independent of the gauge) the above expression can be further reduced to

$$D_{\mu \nu }(q)=\frac{1}{q^2}\left(\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}\right)b^2b_\mu b_\nu \right).$$
(113)
It can be easily checked that in the isotropic limit the expression (113) properly reduces to the results obtained in a different way.

We can further extend this result to include a general gauge by writing

$$D_{\mu \nu }(q)=\frac{1}{q^2}\left(\left(\delta _{\mu \nu }(1\frac{\xi }{2})\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}\right)b^2b_\mu b_\nu \right).$$
(114)
where $`\xi `$ is our continuous parameterization of the gauge fixing. This expression can be justified by the Fadeev-Popov type of procedure starting from the Lagrangian

$$=\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{\xi }\frac{2k^2}{b^2}\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right)a_\mu a_\nu ,$$
(115)
where the stiffness for the unphysical modes was judiciously chosen to scale as $`k`$ in a particular combination of the physical scalars of the theory. Note that $`b^2`$ can be determined without ever considering gauge fixing terms. In this way, the extension of a transverse gauge $`\xi =0`$ to a general covariant gauge is accomplished by a simple substitution $`k_\mu k_\nu (1\frac{\xi }{2})k_\mu k_\nu `$. The expression (114) is our final result for the gauge field propagator in a covariant gauge.

### V.3 TF self energy

As discussed in Sec. IV, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is not gauge invariant in that it has an explicit dependence on the gauge fixing parameter. As we will show in this Section (and more generally in the Appendix D), the renormalization of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ by the unphysical longitudinal degrees of freedom does not depend on the space-time direction: the term in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ which is proportional to $`\gamma _0`$ is renormalized the same way by the gauge dependent part of the action as the terms proportional to $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$. Therefore, the only contribution to the RG flow of $`\alpha _D`$ comes from the physical degrees of freedom.

We denote the topological fermion self-energy at the node $`n`$ by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)`$. Hence, to the leading order in large $`N`$ expansion we have

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\gamma _\mu ^nG_0^n(qk)\gamma _\nu ^nD_{\mu \nu }(k).$$
(116)
or explicitly

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\gamma _\mu ^n\frac{(qk)_\lambda \gamma _\lambda ^n}{(qk)_\mu g_{\mu \nu }(qk)_\nu }\gamma _\nu ^nD_{\mu \nu }(k),$$
(117)
where the gauge field propagator $`D_{\mu \nu }`$ is already screened by the nodal fermions (114). Using the fact that

$$\gamma _\mu \gamma _\lambda \gamma _\nu =iϵ_{\mu \lambda \nu }\gamma _5\gamma _3+\delta _{\mu \lambda }\gamma _\nu \delta _{\mu \nu }\gamma _\lambda +\delta _{\lambda \nu }\gamma _\mu ,$$
(118)
where $`\mu ,\nu ,\lambda \{0,1,2\}`$ and $`\gamma _5i\gamma _0\gamma _1\gamma _2\gamma _3`$, we can easily see that

$$\gamma _\mu ^n\gamma _\lambda ^n\gamma _\nu ^nD_{\mu \nu }=(2g_{\lambda \mu }^n\gamma _\nu ^n\gamma _\lambda ^ng_{\mu \nu }^n)D_{\mu \nu },$$
(119)
where we used the symmetry of the gauge field propagator tensor $`D_{\mu \nu }`$. Thus,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{(qk)_\lambda (2g_{\lambda \mu }^n\gamma _\nu ^n\gamma _\lambda ^ng_{\mu \nu }^n)D_{\mu \nu }(k)}{(qk)_\mu g_{\mu \nu }^n(qk)_\nu }$$
(120)
and as shown in the Appendix D at low energies this can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\underset{\mu }{}\eta _\mu ^n(\gamma _\mu ^nq_\mu )\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\sqrt{q_\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }^nq_\beta }}\right).$$
(121)
Here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is an upper cutoff and the coefficients $`\eta `$ are functions of the bare anisotropy, which have been reduced to a quadrature (see Appendix D). It is straightforward, even if somewhat tedious, to show that in case of weak anisotropy ($`v_F=1+\delta ,v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$), to order $`\delta ^2`$,

$$\eta _0^{1\overline{1}}=\frac{8}{3\pi ^2N}\left(1\frac{3}{2}\xi \frac{1}{35}\left(407\xi \right)\delta ^2\right)$$
(122)
$$\eta _1^{1\overline{1}}=\frac{8}{3\pi ^2N}\left(1\frac{3}{2}\xi +\frac{6}{5}\delta \frac{1}{35}\left(437\xi \right)\delta ^2\right)$$
(123)
$$\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}=\frac{8}{3\pi ^2N}\left(1\frac{3}{2}\xi \frac{6}{5}\delta \frac{1}{35}\left(17\xi \right)\delta ^2\right).$$
(124)
In the isotropic limit ($`v_F=v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) we regain $`\eta _\mu ^n=8(1\frac{3}{2}\xi )/3\pi ^2N`$ as previously found by others.

### V.4 Dirac anisotropy and its $`\beta `$ function

Before plunging into any formal analysis, we wish to discuss some immediate observations regarding the RG flow of the anisotropy. Examining the Eq. (121) it is clear that if $`\eta _1^n=\eta _2^n`$ then the anisotropy does not flow and remains equal to its bare value. That would mean that anisotropy is marginal and the theory flows into the anisotropic fixed point. In fact, such a theory would have a critical line of $`\alpha _D`$. For this to happen, however, there would have to be a symmetry which would protect the equality $`\eta _1^n=\eta _2^n`$. For example, in the isotropic QED3 the symmetry which protects the equality of $`\eta `$’s is the Lorentz invariance. In the case at hand, this symmetry is broken and therefore we expect that $`\eta _1^n`$ will be different from $`\eta _2^n`$, suggesting that the anisotropy flows away from its bare value. If we start with $`\alpha _D>1`$ and find that $`\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}>\eta _1^{1\overline{1}}`$ at some scale $`p<\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, we would conclude that the anisotropy is marginally irrelevant and decreases towards $`1`$. On the other hand if $`\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}<\eta _1^{1\overline{1}}`$, then anisotropy continues increasing beyond its bare value and the theory flows into a critical point with (in)finite anisotropy.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that $`\eta _\mu ^n`$ is not a gauge invariant quantity, i.e. it depends on the gauge fixing parameter $`\xi `$. The statement that, say $`\eta _1^n>\eta _2^n`$, makes sense only if the $`\xi `$ dependence of $`\eta _1^n`$ and $`\eta _2^n`$ is exactly the same, otherwise we could choose a gauge in which the difference $`\eta _2^n\eta _1^n`$ can have either sign. However, we see from the equations (122-124) that in fact the $`\xi `$ dependence of all $`\eta `$’s is indeed the same. Although it was explicitly demonstrated only to the $`𝒪(\delta ^2)`$, in the Appendix D we show that it is in fact true to all orders of anisotropy for any choice of covariant gauge fixing. This fact provides the justification for our procedure. Now we supply the formal analysis reflecting the above discussion.

The renormalized 2-point vertex function is related to the “bare” 2-point vertex function via a fermion field rescaling $`Z_\psi `$ as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(2)}=Z_\psi \mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2)}.$$
(125)
It is natural to demand that for example at nodes $`1`$ and $`\overline{1}`$ at some renormalization scale $`p`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(2)}(p)`$ will have the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(2)}(p)=\gamma _0p_0+v_F^R\gamma _1p_1+v_\mathrm{\Delta }^R\gamma _2p_2.$$
(126)
Thus, the equation (126) corresponds to our renormalization condition through which we can eliminate the cutoff dependence and calculate the RG flows.

To the order of $`1/N`$ we can write

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{(2)}(p)=Z_\psi \gamma _\mu ^np_\mu \left(1+\eta _\mu ^n\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}\right)$$
(127)
where we used the fermionic self-energy (121). Multiplying both sides by $`\gamma _0`$ and tracing the resulting expression determines the field strength renormalization

$$Z_\psi =\frac{1}{1+\eta _0^n\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}}1\eta _0^n\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}.$$
(128)
We can now determine the renormalized Fermi and gap velocities

$$\frac{v_F^R}{v_F}(1\eta _0^{1\overline{1}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p})(1+\eta _1^{1\overline{1}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p})1(\eta _0^{1\overline{1}}\eta _1^{1\overline{1}})\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}$$
(129)
and

$$\frac{v_\mathrm{\Delta }^R}{v_\mathrm{\Delta }}(1\eta _0^{1\overline{1}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p})(1+\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p})1(\eta _0^{1\overline{1}}\eta _2^{1\overline{1}})\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}.$$
(130)
The corresponding renormalized Dirac anisotropy is therefore

$$\alpha _D^R\frac{v_F^R}{v_\mathrm{\Delta }^R}\alpha _D(1(\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}\eta _1^{1\overline{1}})\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{p}).$$
(131)
The RG beta function can now be determined

$$\beta _{\alpha _D}=\frac{d\alpha _D^R}{d\mathrm{ln}p}=\alpha _D(\eta _2^{1\overline{1}}\eta _1^{1\overline{1}}).$$
(132)
In the case of weak anisotropy ($`v_F=1+\delta ,v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) the above expression can be determined analytically as an expansion in $`\delta .`$ Using Eqs.(123-124) we obtain

$$\beta _{\alpha _D}=\frac{8}{3\pi ^2N}\left(\frac{6}{5}\delta (1+\delta )(2\delta )+𝒪(\delta ^3)\right).$$
(133)
Note that this expression is independent of the gauge fixing parameter $`\xi `$. For $`0<\delta 1`$ the $`\beta `$ function is positive which means that anisotropy decreases in the IR and thus the anisotropic QED3 scales to an isotropic QED3. For $`1\delta <0`$ the $`\beta `$ function is negative and in this case the anisotropy increases towards the fixed point $`\alpha _D=1`$, i.e. again towards the isotropic QED3. Note that for $`\delta >2`$, $`\beta <0`$ which may naively indicate that there is a fixed point at $`\delta =2`$; this however cannot be trusted as it is outside of the range of validity of the power expansion of $`\eta _\mu `$. The numerical evaluation of the quadrature in Eq. (201) shows that, apart from the isotropic fixed point and the unstable fixed point at $`\alpha _D=0`$, $`\beta _{\alpha _D}`$ does not vanish (see Fig. 4). This indicates that to the leading order in the $`1/N`$ expansion, the theory flows into the isotropic fixed point.

## VI Summary and conclusions

By appealing to the unique features of high-$`T_c`$ cuprates – strong electron correlations, unconventional order parameter symmetry and pronounced fluctuation effects – we argued in favor of the inverted approach to the problem of describing various thermodynamic phases appearing in the underdoped region. This inverted approach can be thought of as a “Fermi liquid” theory of the phase fluctuating d-wave superconductor where the role of the Fermi energy as the large energy scale of the problem is played by $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the amplitude of the pseudogap, which we assume to be predominantly of the pairing nature. Under the umbrella of this pseudogap – inside the pairing protectorate – we identify the BdG quasiparticles as the relevant low lying fermionic excitations of the theory and study their evolution under the effects of interactions mediated by vortex-antivortex fluctuations. By carefully treating these interactions we find that the low energy effective theory for the quasiparticles inside the pairing protectorate is the (2+1) dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED3) with inherent spatial anisotropy, described by Lagrangian $`_D`$ specified by Eqs. (III.1,64).

Within the superconducting state the gauge fields of the theory are massive by virtue of vortex defects being bound into finite loops or vortex-antivortex pairs. Such massive gauge fields produce only short ranged interactions between our BdG quasiparticles and are therefore irrelevant: in the superconductor quasiparticles remain sharp in agreement with prevailing experimental data norman1 . Loss of the long range superconducting order is brought about by unbinding the topological defects – vortex loops or vortex-antivortex pairs – via Kosterlitz-Thouless type transition and its quantum cousin. Remarkably, this is accompanied by the Berry gauge field becoming massless. Such massless gauge field mediates long range interactions between the fermions and becomes a relevant perturbation. Exactly what is the consequence of this relevant perturbation depends on the number of fermion species $`N`$ in the problem. For cuprates we argued that $`N=2n_{\mathrm{CuO}}`$ where $`n_{\mathrm{CuO}}`$ is the number of CuO2 layers per unit cell. If $`N<N_c3`$ appelquist , the interactions cause spontaneous opening of a gap for the fermionic excitations at $`T=0`$, via the mechanism of chiral symmetry breaking in QED3 csb . Formation of the gap corresponds to the onset of AF SDW instability herbut1 ; tvfqed  which must be considered as a progenitor of the Mott-Hubbard-Neel antiferromagnet at half-filling. If, on the other hand, $`N>N_c`$ as will be the case in bilayer or trilayer materials, the theory remains in its chirally symmetric nonsuperconducting phase even as $`T0`$ and AF order arises from within such state only upon further underdoping (Fig. 1). We call this symmetric state of QED3 an algebraic Fermi liquid (AFL). In both cases AFL controls the low temperature, low energy behavior of the pseudogap state and in this sense assumes the role played by Fermi liquid theory in conventional metals and superconductors. In AFL the quasiparticle pole is replaced by a branch cut – the quasiparticle is no longer sharp – and the gauge invariant electron propagator acquires a Luttinger-like form Eq. (94) with positive anomalous dimension $`\eta ^{}=16/3\pi ^2N`$. To our knowledge this is one of the very few cases where a non-Fermi liquid nature of the excitations has been demonstrated in dimension greater than one in the absence of disorder or magnetic field. This Luttinger-like behavior of AFL will manifest itself in anomalous power law functional form of many physical properties of the system.

Dirac anisotropy, i.e. the fact that $`v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }`$, plays important role in the cuprates where the ratio $`\alpha _D=v_F/v_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in most materials ranges between 3 and 15$``$20. Such anisotropy is nontrivial as it cannot be rescaled and it significantly complicates any calculation within the theory. Using the perturbative renormalization group theory we have shown that anisotropic QED3 flows back into isotropic stable fixed point. This means that for weak anisotropy at long lengthscales the universal properties of the theory are identical to those of the simple isotropic case. It remains to be seen what are the properties of the theory at intermediate lengthscales when anisotropy is strong.

Our theory of the pseudogap state gets its inspiration and builds on the ideas originally articulated by Emery and Kivelson in Ref. emerykivelson  and by Randeria and collaborators randeria . These ideas were later explored and extended in various directions by others nodalliquid ; franzmillis ; dorsey ; loktev ; levin ; giovannini . These approaches share a common philosophical platform of assuming that the pseudogap is primarily due to pairing in the p-p channel and in the underdoped regime superconducting long range coherence is destroyed by the phase fluctuations. The essential differences lie in the implementation of these ideas. Balents et al. nodalliquid , for instance, argue for true separation of spin and charge senthil  in their ”nodal liquid” phase which then gives way to an unconventional antiferromagnet “AF\*” with deconfined spin 1/2 excitations. Our theory also shares considerable formal similarities with the SU(2) gauge theories of Wen, Lee and co-workers kim  and works by Aitchinson and Mavromatos csb , in that their low energy effective theory is also related to QED3. In those cases, however, the physical content of the theory – the identity of its excitations – are totally different.

Finally there is a class of theories where the pseudogap is assumed to be due to some competing order, usually in the p-h channel. This includes SO(5) zhang , d-density wave chakravarty  and various other competing orders sachdev . At present time we believe that experimental evidence favors the pairing origin of the pseudogap, however the evidence is far from conclusive and experiments can be found to support virtually any aspect of the above mentioned theories. We believe, therefore, that the road ahead necessitates making specific predictions based on controlled and well defined approaches. The QED3 theory of the pairing pseudogap, as presented in this paper, starts from a remarkably simple set of assumptions, and via manipulations that are controlled in the sense of $`1/N`$ expansion, arrives at nontrivial consequences, including the algebraic Fermi liquid and the antiferromagnet. Another notable feature of this theory is that it is fully calculable: having the explicit form of the low energy effective action, free of constraints and uncertainties, physical observables can be computed through a systematic procedure superrenormalizable .

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to P. W. Anderson, A. Auerbach, T. Appelquist, G. Baskaran, A. Cohen, Ø. Fischer, M. P. A. Fisher, B. Giovannini, S. M. Girvin, L. P. Gor’kov, V. P. Gusynin, I. F. Herbut, C. Kallin, D. V. Khveshchenko, S. A. Kivelson, R. B. Laughlin, A. J. Millis, H. Monien, N. P. Ong, W. Rantner, M. Reenders, S. Sachdev, T. Senthil, D. E. Sheehy, A. Sudbø, A.-M. Tremblay, P. B. Wiegmann, A. Zee and S. C. Zhang for helpful discussions and correspondence. This research was supported in part by NSERC (MF) and the NSF Grants PHY99-07949 (ITP) and DMR00-94981 (ZT,OV).

## Appendix A Jacobian $`_0`$

Here we derive the explicit form of the “Jacobian” $`_0`$ for two cases of interest: i) the thermal vortex-antivortex fluctuations in 2D layers and ii) the spacetime vortex loop excitations relevant for low temperatures ($`TT^{}`$) deep in the underdoped regime.

### A.1 2D thermal vortex-antivortex fluctuations

In order to perform specific computations we have to adopt a model for vortex-antivortex excitations. We will use a 2D Coulomb gas picture of vortex-antivortex plasma. In this model (anti)vortices are either point-like objects or are assumed to have a small hard-disk radius of size of the coherence length $`\xi _0`$ which emulates the core region. As long as $`\xi _0n^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}}`$, where $`n=n_v+n_a`$ is the average density of vortex defects, the two models lead to very similar results and both undergo a vortex-antivortex pair unbinding transition of the Kosterlitz-Thouless variety.

Above the transition we have

$`\mathrm{exp}[\beta {\displaystyle d^2r_0}]=2^{N_l}{\displaystyle \underset{A,B}{}}{\displaystyle 𝒟\phi (𝐫)}`$ (134)
$`\times \delta [\times 𝐯\frac{1}{2}\times (\phi _A+\phi _B)]`$
$`\times \delta [\times 𝐚\frac{1}{2}\times (\phi _A\phi _B)].`$
The phase $`\phi (𝐫)`$ is due solely to vortices and we can rewrite (134) as:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{N_v,N_a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{N_l}}{N_v!N_a!}}{\displaystyle \underset{A,B}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v}{}}}{\displaystyle d^2r_i\underset{j}{\overset{N_a}{}}d^2r_je^{\beta E_c(N_v+N_a)}}`$ (135)
$`\times \delta \left[\rho _v(𝐫){\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i)\right]\delta \left[\rho _a(𝐫){\displaystyle \underset{j}{\overset{N_a}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j)\right]`$
$`\times \delta [b(𝐫)\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v^A}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i^A)+\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v^B}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i^B)`$
$`+\pi {\displaystyle \underset{j}{\overset{N_a^A}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j^A)\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_a^B}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j^B)].`$
Here $`N_v(N_a)`$ is the number of free vortices (antivortices), $`N_l=N_v+N_a`$, $`𝐫_i`$ ($`𝐫_j`$) are vortex (antivortex) coordinates and $`\rho _v(𝐫)`$ ($`\rho _a(𝐫)`$) are the corresponding densities. $`b(𝐫)=(\times a(𝐫))_z=\pi (\rho _v^A\rho _v^B\rho _a^A+\rho _a^B)`$ and $`E_c`$ is the core energy which we have absorbed into $`_0`$ for convenience. We now express the above $`\delta `$-functions as functional integrals over three new fields: $`d_v(𝐫)`$, $`d_a(𝐫)`$ and $`\kappa (𝐫)`$:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{N_v,N_a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^{N_l}}{N_v!N_a!}}{\displaystyle \underset{A,B}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v}{}}}{\displaystyle d^2r_i\underset{j}{\overset{N_a}{}}d^2r_je^{\beta E_c(N_v+N_a)}}`$ (136)
$`\times {\displaystyle }𝒟d_v𝒟d_a𝒟\kappa \mathrm{exp}\{i{\displaystyle }d^2rd_v(\rho _v(𝐫){\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i))`$
$`+i{\displaystyle d^2rd_a(\rho _a(𝐫)\underset{j}{\overset{N_a}{}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j))}`$
$`+i{\displaystyle }d^2r\kappa [b(𝐫)\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v^A}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i^A)+\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v^B}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_i^B)`$
$`+\pi {\displaystyle \underset{j}{\overset{N_a^A}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j^A)\pi {\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_a^B}{}}}\delta (𝐫𝐫_j^B)]\}.`$
The integration over $`\delta `$-functions in the exponential is easily performed and the summation over $`A(B)`$ labels can be carried out explicitly to obtain:

$`{\displaystyle 𝒟d_v𝒟d_a𝒟\kappa \mathrm{exp}\left[id^2r\left(d_v\rho _v+d_a\rho _a+\kappa b\right)\right]}`$ (137)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{N_v,N_a}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\beta E_cN_v}}{N_v!}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{N_v}{}}}{\displaystyle }d^2r_i\mathrm{exp}(id_v(𝐫_i))\mathrm{cos}(\pi \kappa (𝐫_i))`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{e^{\beta E_cN_a}}{N_a!}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{\overset{N_a}{}}}{\displaystyle d^2r_j\mathrm{exp}(id_a(𝐫_j))\mathrm{cos}(\pi \kappa (𝐫_j))}.`$
In the thermodynamic limit the sum (137) is dominated by $`N_{v(a)}=N_{v(a)}`$, where $`N_{v(a)}`$ is the average number of free (anti)vortices determined by solving the full problem. Furthermore, as $`N_{v(a)}\mathrm{}`$ in the thermodynamic limit the integration over $`d_v(𝐫)`$, $`d_a(𝐫)`$ and $`\kappa (𝐫)`$ can be performed in the saddle-point approximation leading to the following saddle-point equations:

$`\rho _v(𝐫)+N_v\mathrm{\Omega }_v(𝐫)=0`$ (138)
$`\rho _a(𝐫)+N_a\mathrm{\Omega }_a(𝐫)=0`$ (139)
$`b(𝐫)+[N_v\mathrm{\Omega }_v(𝐫)+N_a\mathrm{\Omega }_a(𝐫)]`$ (140)
$`\times \pi \mathrm{tanh}(\pi \kappa (𝐫))=0`$
with

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_m(𝐫)=\frac{e^{d_m(𝐫)}\mathrm{cosh}(\pi \kappa (𝐫))}{d^2r^{}e^{d_m(𝐫^{})}\mathrm{cosh}(\pi \kappa (𝐫^{}))},m=a,v.$$

Eqs. (138-140) follow from functional derivatives of (137) with respect to $`d_v(𝐫)`$, $`d_a(𝐫)`$ and $`\kappa (𝐫)`$, respectively. We have also built in the fact that the saddle-point solutions occur at $`d_vid_v`$, $`d_aid_a`$, $`\kappa i\kappa `$.

The saddle-point equations (138-140) can be solved exactly leading to:

$`d_v(𝐫)=\mathrm{ln}\rho _v(𝐫)\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cosh}(\pi \kappa (𝐫))`$ (141)
$`d_a(𝐫)=\mathrm{ln}\rho _a(𝐫)\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cosh}(\pi \kappa (𝐫))`$ (142)
where

$$\kappa (𝐫)=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{tanh}^1\left[\frac{b(𝐫)}{\pi (\rho _v(𝐫)+\rho _a(𝐫))}\right].$$
(143)
Inserting (141-143) back into (137) finally gives the entropic part of $`_0/T`$:

$`\rho _v`$ $`\mathrm{ln}\rho _v+\rho _a\mathrm{ln}\rho _a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}(\times 𝐚)_z\mathrm{tanh}^1\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(\times 𝐚)_z}{\pi (\rho _v+\rho _a)}}\right]`$ (144)
$`+`$ $`(\rho _v+\rho _a)\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{cosh}\mathrm{tanh}^1\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(\times 𝐚)_z}{\pi (\rho _v+\rho _a)}}\right],`$
where $`\rho _{v(a)}(𝐫)`$ are densities of free (anti)vortices. We display $`_0`$ in this form to make contact with familiar physics: the first two terms in (144) are the entropic contribution of free (anti)vortices and the Doppler gauge field $`\times 𝐯\pi (\rho _v\rho _a)`$ ($`\times 𝐯=0`$). The last two terms encode the “Berry phase” physics of topological frustration. Note that the “Berry” magnetic field $`b=(\times 𝐚)_z`$ couples directly only to the total density of vortex defects $`\rho _v+\rho _a`$ and is insensitive to the vortex charge. This is a reflection of the Z2 symmetry of the original problem defined on discrete (i.e., not coarse-grained) vortices. We write $`\rho _{v(a)}(𝐫)=\rho _{v(a)}+\delta \rho _{v(a)}(𝐫)`$ and expand (144) to leading order in $`\delta \rho _{v(a)}`$ and $`\times 𝐚`$:

$$_0/T(\times 𝐯)^2/(2\pi ^2n_l)+(\times 𝐚)^2/(2\pi ^2n_l),$$
(145)
where $`n_l=\rho _v+\rho _a`$ is the average density of free vortex defects. Both $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ have a Maxwellian bare stiffness and are massless in the normal state. As one approaches $`T_c`$, $`n_l\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}^20`$, where $`\xi _{\mathrm{sc}}(x,T)`$ is the superconducting correlation length, and $`𝐯`$ and $`𝐚`$ become massive (see the main text).

### A.2 Quantum fluctuations of (2+1)D vortex loops

The expression for $`_0[j_\mu ]`$ given by Eq. (39) follows directly once the system contains unbound vortex loops in its ground state and thus can respond to the external perturbation $`A_\mu ^{\mathrm{ext}}`$ over arbitrary large distances in (2+1)-dimensional spacetime. This is already clear at intuitive level if we just think of the geometry of infinite versus finite loops and the fact that only unbound loops allow vorticity fluctuations, described by $`j_\mu (q)j_\nu (q)`$, to proceed unhindered. Still, it is useful to derive (39) and its consequences belabored in Section II within an explicit model for vortex loop fluctuations.

Here we consider fluctuating vortex loops in continuous (2+1)D spacetime and compute $`_0[j_\mu ]`$ using duality map to the relativistic Bose superfluid kleinert . We again start by using our model of a large gap s-wave superconductor which enables us to neglect $`a_\mu `$ in the fermion action and integrate over it in the expression for $`_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]`$ (11). This gives:

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_0}}=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{N!}\underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}𝒟x_l[s_l]\delta \left(j_\mu (x)n_\mu (x)\right)e^{\stackrel{~}{S}}$$
(146)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{S}=\underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}S_0𝑑s_l+\frac{1}{2}\underset{l,l^{}=1}{\overset{N}{}}𝑑s_l𝑑s_l^{}g(|x_l[s_l]x_l^{}[s_l^{}]|)$$
(147)
and

$$\left(\times \phi (x)\right)_\mu =2\pi n_\mu (x)=2\pi \underset{l}{\overset{N}{}}_L𝑑x_{l\mu }\delta (xx_l[s_l]).$$
(148)
In the above equations $`N`$ is the number of loops, $`s_l`$ is the Schwinger proper time (or “proper length”) of loop $`l`$, $`S_0`$ is the action per unit length associated with motion of vortex cores in (2+1)-dimensional spacetime (in an analogous 3D model this would be $`\epsilon _c/T`$, where $`\epsilon _c`$ is the core line energy), $`g(|x_l[s_l]x_l^{}[s_l^{}]|)`$ is the short range penalty for core overlap and $`L`$ denotes a line integral. We kept our practice of including core terms independent of vorticity into $`_0`$. Note that vortex loops must be periodic along $`\tau `$ reflecting the original periodicity of $`\phi (𝐫,\tau )`$.

We can think of vortex loops as worldline trajectories of some relativistic charged (complex) bosons (charged since the loops have two orientations) in two spatial dimensions. $`_0`$ without the $`\delta `$-function describes the vacuum Lagrangian of such a theory, with vortex loops representing particle-antiparticle virtual creation and annihilation process. The duality map is based on the following relation between the Green function of free charged bosons and a gas of free oriented loops:

$$G(x)=\varphi (0)\varphi ^{}(x)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{e^{ikx}}{k^2+m_d^2}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑se^{sm_d^2}$$

$$\times \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}e^{ikxsk^2}=_0^{\mathrm{}}dse^{sm_d^2}\left(\frac{1}{4\pi s}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}}e^{\frac{x^2}{4s}},$$
(149)
where $`m_d`$ is the mass of the complex dual field $`\varphi (x)`$. Within the Feynman path integral representation we can write:

$$\left(\frac{1}{4\pi s}\right)^{3/2}e^{\frac{1}{4}x^2/s}=_{x(0)=0}^{x(s)=x}𝒟x(s^{})\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{4}_0^s𝑑s^{}\dot{x}^2(s^{})\right],$$
(150)
where $`\dot{x}dx/ds`$. Furthermore, by simple integration (149) can be manipulated into

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\mathrm{ln}(^2+m_d^2)\right]=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ds}{s}e^{sm_d^2}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}e^{sk^2}\hfill \\ \hfill =_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ds}{s}e^{sm_d^2}𝒟x(s^{})\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{4}_0^s𝑑s^{}\dot{x}^2(s^{})\right]\end{array}$$
(151)
where the path integral now runs over closed loops ($`x(s)=x(0)`$). In the dual theory this can be reexpressed as

$$\mathrm{Tr}\left[\mathrm{ln}(^2+m_d^2)\right]=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}(k^2+m_d^2).$$
(152)
Combining (151) and (152) and using

$$\mathrm{Tr}\left[\mathrm{ln}(^2+m_d^2)\right]=\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{Det}(^2+m_d^2)𝒲$$
(153)
finally leads to:

$$\begin{array}{c}e^𝒲=\underset{N=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{N!}\underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}[_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ds_l}{s_l}e^{s_lm_d^2}𝒟x(s_l^{})]\times \hfill \\ \hfill \mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{4}\underset{l=1}{\overset{N}{}}_0^{s_l}𝑑s_l^{}\dot{x}^2(s_l^{})\right].\end{array}$$
(154)
This is nothing else but the partition function of the free loop gas. The size of loops is regulated by $`m_d`$. As $`m_d0`$ the average loop size diverges. On the other hand, through $`𝒲`$ (153), we can also think of (154) as the partition function of the free bosonic theory.

To exploit this equivalence further we write

$$Z_d=𝒟\varphi ^{}𝒟\varphi e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_d}},$$
(155)
where

$$_d=|\varphi |^2+m_d^2|\varphi |^2+\frac{g}{2}|\varphi |^4,$$
(156)
and argue that $`Z_d`$ describes vortex loops with short range interactions in (146). This can be easily demonstrated by decoupling $`|\varphi |^4`$ through Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation and retracing the above steps. The reader is referred to the book by Kleinert for further details of the above duality mapping kleinert .

We can now rewrite the $`\delta `$-function in (146) as

$$\delta \left(j_\mu (x)n_\mu (x)\right)𝒟\kappa _\mu \mathrm{exp}\left(id^3x\kappa _\mu (j_\mu n_\mu )\right)$$
(157)
and observe that in the above language of Feynman path integrals in proper time $`id^3x\kappa _\mu n_\mu `$ (148) assumes the meaning of a particle current three-vector $`n_\mu `$ coupled to a three-vector potential $`\kappa _\mu `$. Employing the same arguments that led to (156) we now have:

$$_d[\kappa _\mu ]=|(i\kappa )\varphi |^2+m_d^2|\varphi |^2+\frac{g}{2}|\varphi |^4,$$
(158)
which leads to

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_0[j_\mu ]}}𝒟\varphi ^{}𝒟\varphi 𝒟\kappa _\mu e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x\left(i\kappa _\mu j_\mu +_d[\kappa _\mu ]\right)}}.$$
(159)
In the pseudogap state vortex loop unbinding causes loss of superconducting phase coherence. In the dual language, the appearance of such infinite loops as $`m_d0`$ implies superfluidity in the system of charged bosons described by $`_d`$ (156). The dual off-diagonal long range order (ODLRO) in $`\varphi (x)\varphi ^{}(x^{})`$ means that there are worldline trajectories that connect points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ over infinite spacetime distances – these infinite worldlines are nothing else but unbound vortex paths in this “vortex loop condensate”. Thus, the dual and the true superconducting ODLRO are two opposite sides of the same coin.

$`_d[\kappa _\mu ]`$ is the Lagrangian of this dual superfluid in presence of the external vector potential $`\kappa _\mu `$. In the ordered phase, the response of the system is just the dual version of the Meissner effect. Consequently, upon functional integration over $`\varphi `$ we are allowed to write:

$$e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_0[j_\mu ]}}=𝒟\kappa _\mu e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x\left(i\kappa _\mu j_\mu +M_d^2\kappa _\mu \kappa _\mu \right)}},$$
(160)
where $`M_d^2=|\varphi |^2`$, with $`\varphi `$ being the dual order parameter. The remaining functional integration over $`\kappa _\mu `$ finally results in:

$$_0[j_\mu ]\frac{j_\mu j_\mu }{4|\varphi |^2}.$$
(161)
We have tacitly assumed that the system of loops is isotropic. The intrinsic anisotropy of the (2+1)D theory is easily reinstated and (161) becomes Eq. (39) of the main text.

It is now time to recall that we are interested in a d-wave superconductor. This means we must restore $`a_\mu `$ to the problem. To accomplish this we engage in a bit of thievery: imagine now that it was $`v_\mu `$ whose coupling to fermions was negligible and we could integrate over it in (11). We would then be left with only the $`\delta `$-function containing $`a_\mu `$. Actually, we can compute such $`_0[b_\mu /\pi ]`$, where $`\times a=b`$, without any additional work. Note that $`_0`$ contains only vorticity independent terms. We can equally well proclaim that it is the $`A(B)`$ labels that determine the true orientation of our loops while the actual vorticity is simply a gauge label – in essence, $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ trade places. After the same algebra as before we obtain:

$$_0[b_\mu /\pi ]\frac{b_\mu b_\mu }{4\pi ^2|\varphi |^2},$$
(162)
which is just the Maxwell action for $`a_\mu `$.

Of course, this simple argument that led to (162) is illegal. We cannot just forget $`v_\mu `$. If we did we would have no right to coarse-grain $`a_\mu `$ to begin with and would have to face up to its purely Z2 character (see Section II). Still, the above reasoning does illustrate that the Maxwellian stiffness of $`a_\mu `$ follows the same pattern as that of $`v_\mu `$: both are determined by the order parameter $`\varphi `$ of condensed dual superfluid. Thus, we can write the correct form of $`_0`$, with both $`v_\mu `$ and $`a_\mu `$ fully included into our accounting, as

$$_0[v_\mu ,a_\mu ]\frac{(\times v)_\mu (\times v)_\mu }{4\pi ^2|\varphi |^2}+\frac{(\times a)_\mu (\times a)_\mu }{4\pi ^2|\varphi |^2},$$
(163)
where our ignorance is now stored in computing the actual value of $`\varphi `$ from the original parameters of the d-wave superconductor problem. With anisotropy restored this is precisely Eq. (45) of Section II.

## Appendix B Feynman integrals in QED3

Many of the integrals encountered here are considered standard in particle physics. Since the techniques involved are not as common in the condensed matter physics we provide some of the technical details in this Appendix. A more in-depth discussion can be found in many field theory textbooks peskin .

### B.1 Vacuum polarization bubble

The vacuum polarization Eq. (66) can be written more explicitly as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q)=2N\mathrm{Tr}[\gamma _\alpha \gamma _\mu \gamma _\beta \gamma _\nu ]I_{\alpha \beta }(q)$$
(164)
with

$$I_{\alpha \beta }(q)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{k_\alpha (k_\beta +q_\beta )}{k^2(k+q)^2}.$$
(165)
The integrals of this type are most easily evaluated by employing the Feynman parametrization peskin . This consists in combining the denominators using the formula

$$\frac{1}{A^aB^b}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a+b)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b)}_0^1𝑑x\frac{x^{a1}(1x)^{b1}}{[xA+(1x)B]^{a+b}},$$
(166)
valid for any positive real numbers $`a`$, $`b`$, $`A`$, $`B`$. Setting $`A=k^2`$ and $`B=(k+q)^2`$ allows us to rewrite (165) as

$$I_{\alpha \beta }(q)=_0^1𝑑x\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{k_\alpha (k_\beta +q_\beta )}{[(k+(1x)q)^2+x(1x)q^2]^2}.$$
(167)
We now shift the integration variable $`kk(1x)q`$ to obtain

$$I_{\alpha \beta }(q)=_0^1𝑑x\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{k_\alpha k_\beta x(1x)q_\alpha q_\beta }{[k^2+x(1x)q^2]^2},$$
(168)
where we have dropped terms odd in $`k`$ which vanish by symmetry upon integration. We now notice that $`k_\alpha k_\beta `$ term will only contribute if $`\alpha =\beta `$ and we can therefore replace it in Eq. (168) by $`\frac{1}{3}\delta _{\alpha \beta }k^2`$. With this replacement the angular integrals are trivial and we have

$$I_{\alpha \beta }(q)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^1𝑑x_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑kk^2\frac{\frac{1}{3}\delta _{\alpha \beta }k^2x(1x)q_\alpha q_\beta }{[k^2+x(1x)q^2]^2}.$$
(169)
The only remaining difficulty stems from the fact that the integral formally diverges at the upper bound. This divergence is an artifact of our linearization of the fermionic spectrum which breaks down for energies approaching the superconducting gap value. It is therefore completely legitimate to introduce an ultraviolet cutoff. Such UV cutoffs however tend to interfere with gauge invariance preservation of which is crucial in this computation. A more physical way of regularizing the integral Eq. (169) is to recall that the gauge field must remain massless, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q0)=0`$. To enforce this property we write Eq. (164) as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(q)=2N\mathrm{Tr}[\gamma _\alpha \gamma _\mu \gamma _\beta \gamma _\nu ][I_{\alpha \beta }(q)I_{\alpha \beta }(0)],$$
(170)
and we see that proper regularization of Eq. (169) involves subtracting the value of the integral at $`q=0`$. The remaining integral is convergent and elementary; explicit evaluation gives

$$I_{\alpha \beta }(q)I_{\alpha \beta }(0)=\frac{|q|}{64}\left(\delta _{\alpha \beta }+\frac{q_\alpha q_\beta }{q^2}\right).$$
(171)
Inserting this in (170) and working out the trace using Eqs. (61) and (62) we find the result (67). Identical result can be obtained using dimensional regularization.

### B.2 TF self energy: Lorentz gauge

For simplicity we evaluate the self energy (71) in the Lorentz gauge ($`\xi =0`$). Extension to arbitrary covariant gauge is trivial. Eq. (71) can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_L(k)=\frac{2}{\pi ^3N}\gamma _\mu I_\mu (k)$$
(172)
with

$$I_\mu (k)=d^3qq_\mu \frac{q(k+q)}{|q|^3(k+q)^2},$$
(173)
where we used an identity

$$\gamma _\mu \gamma _\alpha \gamma _\nu \left(\delta _{\mu \nu }\frac{q_\mu q_\nu }{q^2}\right)=2\overline{)}q\frac{q_\alpha }{q^2}.$$

Since the only 3-vector available is $`k`$, clearly the vector integral $`I_\mu (k)`$ can only have components in the $`k_\mu `$ direction, $`I_\mu (k)=𝒞(k)k_\mu /k^2`$. By forming a scalar product $`k_\mu I_\mu (k)`$ we obtain

$$𝒞(k)=k_\mu I_\mu (k)=d^3q\frac{(qk)(qk+q^2)}{|q|^3(k+q)^2}.$$
(174)
Combining the denominators using Eq. (166) and following the same steps as in the computation of polarization bubble above we obtain

$`𝒞(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x\sqrt{x}{\displaystyle d^3q}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2x1)(kq)^2(1x)k^2q^2+x(1x)^2k^4}{[q^2+x(1x)k^2]^{5/2}}}.`$
The angular integrals are trivial and after introducing an ultraviolet cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and rescaling the integration variable by $`|k|`$ the integral becomes

$$𝒞(k)=2\pi k^2_0^1𝑑x\sqrt{x}_0^{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{|k|}}𝑑q\frac{(5x4)q^4+3x(1x)^2q^2}{[q^2+x(1x)]^{5/2}}.$$
(176)
The remaining integrals are elementary. Isolating the leading infrared divergent term we obtain

$$𝒞(k)\frac{4\pi }{3}k^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{|k|}.$$
(177)
Substituting this to Eq. (172) we get the self energy (72).

### B.3 Dimensionally regularized gauge field line integral

To evaluate $`𝒫(r)`$ specified by Eq. (89) we write it as a sum of two contributions,

$$𝒫(r)=\frac{8r^2}{(2\pi )^dN}[I_1(r)(1\xi )I_2(r)],$$
(178)
where

$`I_1(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^dk\frac{e^{ikr}}{k}},`$ (179)
$`I_2(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^dk\frac{e^{ikr}}{k}\frac{(kr)^2}{k^2r^2}}.`$ (180)
We first consider $`I_1(r)`$. It is convenient to exponentiate the denominator by use of the formula

$$\frac{1}{A^a}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a)}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ss^{a1}e^{sA}.$$
(181)
Taking $`A=k^2`$, $`a=\frac{1}{2}`$ we have

$$I_1(r)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{ds}{\sqrt{s}}d^dke^{sk^2+ikr}.$$
(182)
The $`k`$ integral is now easy to evaluate by completing the square, shifting the integration variable, and making use of $`d^dk\mathrm{exp}(sk^2)=(\pi /s)^{d/2}`$. We thus obtain

$$I_1(r)=\pi ^{\frac{d1}{2}}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ss^{\frac{d+1}{2}}e^{\frac{r^2}{4s}}.$$
(183)
Substitution $`t=r^2/4s`$ transforms (183) to an integral of the type shown in Eq. (181) and the result reads,

$$I_1(r)=(4\pi )^{\frac{d1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left({\scriptscriptstyle \frac{d1}{2}}\right)r^{1d}.$$
(184)
Using the same procedure we obtain

$$I_2(r)=(4\pi )^{\frac{d1}{2}}(d2)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left({\scriptscriptstyle \frac{d1}{2}}\right)r^{1d}.$$
(185)
Substituting (184) and (185) back into (178) we obtain the result quoted in the text, Eq. (90).

## Appendix C Proof of Brown’s relation for gauge invariant propagator

To prove Brown’s relation Eq. (85) it is useful to introduce fermion propagator for a fixed configuration of gauge field $`a_\mu `$,

$$G[x,x^{};a]=\frac{1}{z[a]}𝒟[\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}},\mathrm{{\rm Y}}]\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(x)\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}}(x^{})e^{S[\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}},\mathrm{{\rm Y}},a]}$$
(186)
where $`S[\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}},\mathrm{{\rm Y}},a]=d^3r_D`$ and $`_D`$ is the QED3 Lagrangian given by Eq. (65), $`z[a]=𝒟[\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}},\mathrm{{\rm Y}}]e^{S[\overline{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}},\mathrm{{\rm Y}},a]}`$. It is easy to see that $`G[x,x^{};a]`$ solves the Dirac equation

$$\gamma _\mu (i_\mu a_\mu )G[x,x^{};a]=\delta (xx^{}).$$
(187)
Furthermore, in terms of $`G[x,x^{};a]`$ the TF propagator can be written as

$$G(xx^{})=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟aG[x,x^{};a]e^{S_B[a]}$$
(188)
where $`S_B=d^3x_B`$ is the effective action \[for our case, to one-loop $`_B`$ is given by Eq. (68)\] and $`Z=𝒟ae^{S_B[a]}`$. We now introduce a gauge invariant analog of $`G[x,x^{};a]`$,

$$𝒢[x,x^{};a]=e^{i_x^x^{}a𝑑r}G[x,x^{};a]$$
(189)
where the integral in the exponent is taken along the straight line connecting space-time points $`x^{}`$ and $`x`$. The gauge invariant TF propagator defined by Eq. (83) is then given by an expression analogous to (188),

$$𝒢(xx^{})=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟a𝒢[x,x^{};a]e^{S_B[a]}.$$
(190)
Our task is to relate Brown propagator $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(xx^{})`$ to $`G(xx^{})`$ (85). To this end we rewrite Eq. (188) as follows

$`G(xx^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z}}{\displaystyle 𝒟a𝒢[x,x^{};a]e^{iJaS_B[a]}}`$ (191)
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{Z}}{Z}}\right)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{Z}}}{\displaystyle 𝒟a𝒢[x,x^{};a]e^{\stackrel{~}{S}_B[a]}}\right]`$
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{Z}}{Z}}\right)\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(xx^{}),`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{S}_B[a]=S_B[a]iJa`$, $`\stackrel{~}{Z}=𝒟ae^{\stackrel{~}{S}_B[a]}`$ and the last equality in Eq. (191) should be taken as a definition of $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(xx^{})`$. The source term $`J`$ is defined by Eq. (87) and $`Ja`$ is a shorthand for $`d^3rJ(r)a(r)_x^x^{}a𝑑r`$. Note that the linear UV divergence of phase factor in $`\stackrel{~}{Z}`$ cancels out between numerator and denominator (191).

We now observe that

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{Z}}{Z}=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟ae^{iJa}e^{S_B[a]}=e^{iJa}e^{F(xx^{})},$$
(192)
with $`F`$ defined by Eq. (86). Substituting this into (191) we have (85):

$$G(xx^{})=e^{F(xx^{})}\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(xx^{}).$$
(193)
To complete this part it remains to address the relation between $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}(xx^{})`$ and $`𝒢(xx^{})`$. To this end we notice that both $`𝒢`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ are gauge invariant: the former by construction and the latter by the following simple observation. Since both $`𝒢[x,x^{};a]`$ and $`S_B[a]`$ depend on the transverse part of $`a`$, any dependence on longitudinal part of $`a`$ comes through the $`iJa`$ term and therefore identically cancels between the numerator and $`\stackrel{~}{Z}`$ in the denominator. Therefore, once defined by Eq. (191) as a ratio of two gauge-variant objects computed in the same covariant gauge, $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ takes on life of its own and is a fully gauge invariant quantity. We may rewrite $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ as such ratio in arbitrary linear gauge; specifically we may chose the axial gauge in which the $`iJa`$ vanishes. In this gauge $`\stackrel{~}{𝒢}`$ is exactly equal to $`𝒢`$. Since they are both gauge invariant they must be equal in arbitrary gauge. The reader should be cautioned, however, that this equality is a formal one since it involves manipulations of gauge-dependent quantities which are ill-defined in absence of some specific regularization.

## Appendix D Feynman integrals for anisotropic case

### D.1 Self energy

As shown in the Section V, to first order in $`1/N`$ expansion, the topological fermion self energy can be reduced to

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{(qk)_\lambda (2g_{\lambda \mu }^n\gamma _\nu ^n\gamma _\lambda ^ng_{\mu \nu }^n)Dx_{\mu \nu }(k)}{(qk)_\mu g_{\mu \nu }^n(qk)_\nu }.$$
(194)
where $`D_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ is the screened gauge field propagator evaluated in the Section 3. In order to perform the radial integral, we rescale the momenta as

$$K_\mu =\sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \nu }k_\nu ;Q_\mu =\sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \nu }q_\nu $$
(195)
and obtain

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d^3K}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{(QK)_\lambda (2\sqrt{g^n}_{\lambda \mu }\gamma _\nu ^n\gamma _\lambda g_{\mu \nu }^n)D_{\mu \nu }(\frac{K_\nu }{\sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \nu }})}{v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }(QK)^2}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(196)
At low energies we can neglect the contribution from the bare field stiffness $`\rho `$ in the gauge propagator (see Section 3) and the resulting $`D_{\mu \nu }(q)`$ exhibits $`\frac{1}{q}`$ scaling

$$D_{\mu \nu }\left(\frac{K_\nu }{\sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \nu }}\right)=\frac{F_{\mu \nu }(\theta ,\varphi )}{|K|}$$
(197)
Now we can explicitly integrate over the magnitude of the rescaled momentum $`K`$ by introducing an upper cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and in the leading order we find that

$$_0^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑K\frac{K^2(QK)_\lambda }{K(QK)^2}=\mathrm{\Lambda }\widehat{K}_\lambda +\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{Q}\right)\left(Q_\lambda 2\widehat{K}_\lambda \widehat{K}Q\right)$$
(198)
where $`\widehat{K}=(\mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi )`$. Since $`\widehat{K}_\mu `$ is odd under inversion while $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ is even, it is not difficult to see that the term proportional to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ vanishes upon the angular integration. Thus

$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{(2\pi )^3v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }}\left(Q_\lambda 2\widehat{K}_\lambda \widehat{K}Q\right)(\times )\hfill \\ \hfill (\times )(2\sqrt{g^n}_{\lambda \mu }\gamma _\nu ^n\gamma _\lambda g_{\mu \nu }^n)F_{\mu \nu }(\theta ,\varphi )\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{Q}\right).\end{array}$$
(199)
Using the fact that the diagonal elements of $`F_{\mu \nu }(\theta ,\varphi )`$ are even under parity, while the off-diagonal elements are odd under parity, the above expression can be further simplified to

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_n(q)=\underset{\mu }{}(\gamma _\mu ^nq_\mu \eta _\mu ^n)\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\sqrt{q_\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }^nq_\beta }}\right)$$
(200)
where the coefficients $`\eta _\mu ^n`$ are pure numbers depending on the bare anisotropy and are thereby reduced to a quadrature

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _\mu ^n=\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }(2\pi )^3}((2\widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\mu 1)(2g_{\mu \mu }^nF_{\mu \mu }\underset{\nu }{}g_{\nu \nu }^nF_{\nu \nu })\hfill \\ \hfill +\underset{\nu \mu }{}4\widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\nu \sqrt{g^n}_{\mu \mu }\sqrt{g^n}_{\nu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }).\end{array}$$
(201)
Repeated indices are not summed in the above expression, unless explicitly indicated. In the case of weak anisotropy ($`v_F=1+ϵ,v_\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) we can show that the Eq.(201) reduces to Eqs.(122-124).

Consider now the effect of the (covariant) gauge fixing term on $`\eta _\mu `$. Let us define the part of $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ which depends on the gauge fixing parameter $`\xi `$ as $`F_{\mu \nu }^{(\xi )}`$. The general form of this term is $`F_{\mu \nu }^{(\xi )}=\xi k_\mu k_\nu f(k)`$ where $`f(k)`$ is a scalar function of all three components of $`k_\mu `$; $`f(k)`$ does in general depend on the anisotropy. Upon rescaling with the nodal metric, see Eq.(195), we have $`F_{\mu \nu }^{(\xi )}=\xi \frac{1}{\sqrt{g_{\mu \mu }}}K_\mu \frac{1}{\sqrt{g_{\nu \nu }}}K_\nu \stackrel{~}{f}(K)`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{f}(K)`$ is the corresponding scalar function of $`K_\mu `$. Substituting $`F_{\mu \nu }^{(\xi )}`$ into the Eq. (201) we find

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _\mu ^\xi =\xi \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }\stackrel{~}{f}(K)}{v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }(2\pi )^3}((2\widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\mu 1)(2\widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\mu \underset{\nu }{}\widehat{K}_\nu \widehat{K}_\nu )\hfill \\ \hfill +\underset{\nu \mu }{}4\widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\nu \widehat{K}_\mu \widehat{K}_\nu ),\end{array}$$
(202)
where $`\eta _\mu ^\xi `$ is the part of $`\eta _\mu `$ which comes entirely from the gauge fixing term. Using the fact that $`_\nu \widehat{K}_\nu \widehat{K}_\nu =1`$, it is a matter of simple algebra to show that

$$\eta _\mu ^\xi =\xi \frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }\stackrel{~}{f}(K)}{v_Fv_\mathrm{\Delta }(2\pi )^3}$$
(203)
i.e., the dependence on the index $`\mu `$ drops out! That means that the renormalization of $`\eta _\mu `$ due to the unphysical longitudinal modes is exactly the same for all of its components. Therefore, the difference in $`\eta _1`$ and $`\eta _2`$, which is related to the RG flow of the Dirac anisotropy comes entirely from the physical modes and is a gauge independent quantity. Note that this statement does not depend on the choice of the covariant gauge, i.e. on the exact form of the function $`f`$, only on the fact that the gauge is covariant.