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arXiv:1112.2395 · Physical Review A

Shear viscosity and spin-diffusion coefficient of a two-dimensional Fermi gas

Georg M. Bruun

Published Jan 26, 2012• 39 citations
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Abstract

Using kinetic theory, we calculate the shear viscosity and the spin-diffusion coefficient as well as the associated relaxation times for a two-component Fermi gas in two dimensions, as a function of temperature, coupling strength, polarization, and mass ratio of the two components. It is demonstrated that the minimum value of the viscosity decreases with the mass ratio, since Fermi blocking becomes less efficient. We furthermore analyze recent experimental results for the quadrupole mode of a two-dimensional gas in terms of viscous damping, obtaining a qualitative agreement using no fitting parameters.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.85.013636

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Using kinetic theory, we calculate the shear viscosity and the spin-diffusion coefficient as well as the associated relaxation times for a two-component Fermi gas in two dimensions, as a function of temperature, coupling strength, polarization, and mass ratio of the two components. It is demonstrated that the minimum value of the viscosity decreases with the mass ratio, since Fermi blocking becomes less efficient. We furthermore analyze recent experimental results for the quadrupole mode of a two-dimensional gas in terms of viscous damping, obtaining a qualitative agreement using no fitting parameters.
We examine spin diffusion in a two-component homogeneous Fermi gas in the normal phase. Using a variational approach, analytical results are presented for the spin diffusion coefficient and the related spin relaxation time as a function of temperature and interaction strength. For low temperatures, strong correlation effects are included through the Landau parameters, which we extract from Monte Carlo results. We show that the spin diffusion coefficient has a minimum for a temperature somewhat below the Fermi temperature with a value that approaches the quantum limit ∼ℏ/ m in the unitarity regime, where m is the particle mass. Finally, we derive a value for the low-temperature shear viscosity in the normal phase from the Landau parameters.
We investigate the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity and spin diffusion in a two-dimensional Fermi gas with contact interactions, as realized in ultracold atomic gases. We describe the transport coefficients in terms of a Boltzmann equation and present a full numerical solution for the degenerate gas. In contrast to previous works we take the medium effects due to finite density fully into account. This effect reduces the viscosity-to-entropy ratio $\ensuremath{\eta}/s$ by a factor of 3, and similarly for spin diffusion. The trap-averaged viscosity agrees well with recent measurements by Vogt et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 070404 (2012)].
The shear viscosity of a two-dimensional Fermi gas interacting via a short-range potential with scattering length a2d{a}_{2\mathrm{d}}a2d​ in kinetic theory is computed. It is found that classical kinetic theory predicts that the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio of a strongly interacting two-dimensional gas is comparable to that of the three-dimensional unitary gas. Results are applied to the damping of collective modes of a trapped Fermi gas, and compared to experimental data recently obtained by Vogt et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 070404 (2012)].
The shear viscosity of a two-component Fermi gas in the normal phase is calculated as a function of temperature in the unitarity limit, taking into account strong-coupling effects that give rise to a pseudogap in the spectral density for single-particle excitations. The results indicate that recent measurements of the damping of collective modes in trapped atomic clouds can be understood in terms of hydrodynamics, with a decay rate given by the viscosity integrated over an effective volume of the cloud.
In the first part of the thesis I derive a full quantitative formula which describes the amplitude and frequency of magnetic oscillations in two-dimensional Dirac systems. The investigations are on the basis of graphene, but they generally also hold for other two-dimensional Dirac systems. Starting from the Luttinger-Ward functional I derive an expression for the oscillatory part of the grand potential of graphene in a magnetic field. The amplitude of this ex- pression is usually called the Lifshitz-Kosevich (LK) formula. I perform the computation for the clean and the disordered system, and I study the effect of electron-electron interactions on the oscillations. I discuss my results by comparing them to the analogue expressions for the two-dimensional Fermi gas (2DEG) which have been derived by Adamov et al.. I find that, unlike in the 2DEG, a finite temperature and impurity scattering also affects the oscillation frequency. Further I find that in graphene, compared to the 2DEG, additional interaction induced damping effects occur: to two-loop order electron-electron interactions do lead to an additional damping factor in the amplitude of the LK-formula. Moreover the renormalization effects cannot fully be accounted for by renormalizations of the Fermi velocity but they also have to be described by field renormalizations. In the second part of the thesis I investigate the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity and spin diffusion in a two-dimensional, two-component Fermi gas, as realized in ultracold atomic gases. I implement a contact interaction that only acts between fermions in different hyperfine states. The transport coefficients are obtained within a kinetic approach. I solve the linearized Boltzmann equation by using a variational principle and present a full numerical solution for the degenerate gas. In contrast to previous works I take the medium effect due to finite density fully into account. This effect reduces the viscosity to particle density ratio, η/n, by a factor of four for strong interactions; and similarly for spin diffusion. The lowest value I obtain for the viscosity to entropy ratio is η/s = 0.15h ̄/kB, and it occurs close to the phase transition to the superfluid phase. This value is about twice the conjectured lower bound of η/s = 1/(4π) ̄h/kB, computed using the AdS/CFT correspondence. I compare my result for the shear viscosity to the measurements by Vogt et al., who measured the damping rate of the quadrupole mode of a trapped Fermi gas confined to two dimensions. This damping rate is related to the shear viscosity of the gas and our numerical results agree well with the experiment.
We study hydrodynamic fluctuations in a nonrelativistic fluid. We show that in three dimensions, fluctuations lead to a minimum in the shear viscosity to entropy density ratio $\ensuremath{\eta}/s$ as a function of the temperature. The minimum provides a bound on $\ensuremath{\eta}/s$ which is independent of the conjectured bound in string theory, $\ensuremath{\eta}/s\ensuremath{\ge}\ensuremath{\hbar}/(4\ensuremath{\pi}{k}_{B})$, where sss is the entropy density. For the dilute Fermi gas at unitarity, we find $\ensuremath{\eta}/s\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.2\ensuremath{\hbar}$. This bound is not universal---it depends on the thermodynamic properties of the unitary Fermi gas and on empirical information about the range of validity of hydrodynamics. We also find that the viscous relaxation time of a hydrodynamic mode with frequency $\ensuremath{\omega}$ diverges as $1/\sqrt{\ensuremath{\omega}}$, and that the shear viscosity in two dimensions diverges as $\mathrm{ln}(1/\ensuremath{\omega})$.