Nesting induced precursor effects: a renormalization group approach

We develop a controlled weak coupling renormalization group (RG) approach to itinerant electrons. Within this formalism we rederive the phase diagram for two-dimensional non-nested systems. We then study how nesting modifies this phase diagram. We show that competition between particle-particle and particle-hole channels leads to the manifestation of an unstable precursor fixed point in the RG flow. This effect should be experimentally measurable, and may be relevant for an explanation of pseudogaps in the high temperature superconductors, as a crossover phenomenon.