STRONGLY CORRELATED 2-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRONS IN THE OVERDOPED LIMIT

A square-lattice gauge-theory model for the holon liquid existing in the unconventional metallic phases of strongly interacting two-dimensional electron liquids is introduced. The phase of the holon order parameter couples in a gauge-invariant way to a statistical gauge field, which arises from strong-interaction physics. We find that the superfluid transition that exists in the absence of statistical gaugefield excitations in the holon liquid turns into a crossover phenomenon in the presence of such fluctuations. The corresponding high-temperature phase shows a T-linear resistance, while the low-temperature phase exhibits a T2 dependence for the resistance. The crossover temperature scale T(c0) vanishes, however, in the limit of maximum statistical fluctuations. While we find that statistical gauge-field excitations are strictly gapless, the residue of the pole corresponding to such excitations becomes exponentially small at temperatures small in comparison to T(c0).