Degenerate Bose Liquid in a Fluctuating Gauge Field

We study the effect of a strongly fluctuating gauge field on a degenerate Bose liquid, relevant to the charge degrees of freedom in doped Mott insulators. We find that the superfluidity is destroyed. The resulting metallic phase is studied using quantum Monte Carlo methods. Gauge fluctuations cause the boson world lines to retrace themselves. We examine how this world-line geometry affects the physical properties of the system. In particular, we find a transport relaxation rate of the order of ${2k}_{B}T$, consistent with the normal state of the cuprate superconductors. We also find that the density excitations of this model resemble those of the full $t$- $J$ model.