Landau Fermi Liquid Theory

Abstract

This article reviews the Landau theory of interacting Fermi liquids such as mobile electrons in solids or helium-3. It starts with Landau's original formulation which takes advantage of the existence of a Fermi surface to map the strongly interacting single-particle excitations near the Fermi surface into a system of weakly interacting quasiparticle excitations. The theory relates microscopic parameters for the quasiparticle energies and scattering strengths to experimental observables. The resulting low lying collective modes of the system, such as zero sound in helium-3, are then discussed. Next the rigorous microscopic basis of the theory is presented. Finally there is an outline of a recent modification of the theory which may resolve some of the puzzles about the nature of the electron states in materials exhibiting high transition temperature superconductivity.