We finally might have solved the mystery of 'strange metals'—turns out there was just a normal metal hiding inside them the whole time.
March 26, 2026
Original Paper
Reconciling strange metal transport in CeCoIn$_5$ through the difference of optical and cyclotron effective masses
arXiv · 2603.23740
The Takeaway
Strange metals have long baffled scientists because their electrical resistance changes in a way that seems to break the laws of physics. This experiment reveals that the electrons are actually behaving normally, but they appear strange because their mass increases with temperature, masking a 'hidden' normal metal state.
From the abstract
The strange metal behavior in cuprate superconductors - characterized by linear in temperature resistivity and anomalous Hall transport - stands in stark contrast to the expectation of conventional Fermi liquid (FL) theory. Remarkably, the similar transport behavior has also been observed in the heavy fermion metal CeCoIn$_5$, whose d-wave superconducting ground state and strong antiferromagnetic fluctuations draw parallels to the cuprates. Here we have investigated the optical conductivity of t