Fermi surface bosonization for non-Fermi liquids

Understanding non-Fermi liquids in dimensions higher than one remains one of the most formidable challenges in modern condensed matter physics. These systems, characterized by an abundance of gapless degrees of freedom and the absence of well-defined quasiparticles, defy conventional analytical frameworks. Inspired by recent work [Delacretaz et al. Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 033131 (2022)], we present a procedure for bosonizing Fermi surfaces that does not rely on the existence of sharp excitation and is thus directly applicable to non-Fermi liquids. Our method involves parametrizing the generalized fermionic distribution function through a bosonic field that describes frequency-dependent local variations of the chemical potential in momentum space. We propose an effective action that produces the collisionless quantum Boltzmann equation as its equation of motion and can be used for any dimension and Fermi surface of interest. Even at the quadratic order, this action reproduces nontrivial results obtainable only through involved analysis with alternative means. By offering an alternative method directly applicable to studying the low-energy physics of Fermi and non-Fermi liquids, our work potentially stands as an important building block in advancing the comprehension of strange metals and associated phenomena.