QUANTUM-CHEMISTRY, ANOMALOUS DIMENSIONS, AND THE BREAKDOWN OF FERMI-LIQUID THEORY IN STRONGLY CORRELATED SYSTEMS

We formulate a local picture of strongly correlated systems as a Feynm an sum over atomic configurations. The hopping amplitudes between thes e atomic configurations are identified as the renormalization group ch arges, which describe the local physics at different energy scales. Fo r a metallic system away from half-filling, the fixed point local Hami ltonian is a generalized Anderson impurity model in the mixed valence regime. There are three types of fixed points: a coherent Fermi liquid (FL) and two classes of self-similar (scare invariant) phases which w e denote incoherent metallic states (IMS). When the transitions betwee n the atomic configurations proceed coherently at low energies, the sy stem is a Fermi liquid. Incoherent transitions between the low energy atomic configurations characterize the incoherent metallic states. The initial conditions for the renormalization group flow are determined by the physics at rather high energy scales. This is the domain of loc al quantum chemistry. We use simple quantum chemistry estimates to spe cify the basin of attraction of the IMS fixed points.