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arXiv:2010.00019 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Beyond Ohm's law: Bernoulli effect and streaming in electron hydrodynamics

Aaron Hui, Vadim Oganesyan, Eun-Ah Kim

Published Jun 23, 2021• 22 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Recent observations of nonlocal transport in ultraclean two-dimensional materials raised the tantalizing possibility of accessing hydrodynamic correlated transport of a many-electron state. However, it has been pointed out that nonlocal transport can also arise from impurity scattering rather than interaction. At the crux of the ambiguity is the focus on linear effects, i.e., Ohm's law, which cannot easily differentiate among different modes of transport. Here we propose experiments that can reveal rich hydrodynamic features in the system by tapping into the nonlinearity of the Navier-Stokes equation. Three experiments we propose will each manifest a unique phenomenon that is well known in classical fluids: the Bernoulli effect, Eckart streaming, and Rayleigh streaming. Analysis of known parameters confirms that the proposed experiments are feasible and the hydrodynamic signatures are within reach of graphene-based devices. Experimental realization of any one of the three phenomena will provide a stepping stone to formulating and exploring the notions of nonlinear electron fluid dynamics with an eye to celebrated examples from classical nonlaminar flows, e.g., pattern formation and turbulence.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.103.235152

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Recent observations of nonlocal transport in ultraclean two-dimensional materials raised the tantalizing possibility of accessing hydrodynamic correlated transport of a many-electron state. However, it has been pointed out that nonlocal transport can also arise from impurity scattering rather than interaction. At the crux of the ambiguity is the focus on linear effects, i.e., Ohm's law, which cannot easily differentiate among different modes of transport. Here we propose experiments that can reveal rich hydrodynamic features in the system by tapping into the nonlinearity of the Navier-Stokes equation. Three experiments we propose will each manifest a unique phenomenon that is well known in classical fluids: the Bernoulli effect, Eckart streaming, and Rayleigh streaming. Analysis of known parameters confirms that the proposed experiments are feasible and the hydrodynamic signatures are within reach of graphene-based devices. Experimental realization of any one of the three phenomena will provide a stepping stone to formulating and exploring the notions of nonlinear electron fluid dynamics with an eye to celebrated examples from classical nonlaminar flows, e.g., pattern formation and turbulence.
Recent experimental observations of apparently hydrodynamic electronic transport have generated much excitement. However, the understanding of the observed nonlocal transport (whirlpool) effects and parabolic (Poiseuille-like) current profiles has largely been motivated by a phenomenological analogy to classical fluids. This is due to difficulty in incorporating strong correlations in quantum mechanical calculation of transport, which has been the primary angle for interpreting the apparently hydrodynamic transport. Here we demonstrate that even free-fermion systems, in the presence of (inevitable) disorder, exhibit nonlocal conductivity effects such as those observed in experiments because of the fermionic system's long-range entangled nature. On the basis of explicit calculations of the conductivity at finite wave vector, $\ensuremath{\sigma}(\mathbf{q})$, for selected weakly disordered free-fermion systems, we propose experimental strategies for demonstrating distinctive quantum effects in nonlocal transport at odds with the expectations of classical kinetic theory. Our results imply that the observation of whirlpools or other ``hydrodynamic'' effects does not guarantee the dominance of electron-electron scattering over electron-impurity scattering.
Generic interacting many-body quantum systems are believed to behave as classical fluids on long time and length scales. Due to rapid progress in growing exceptionally pure crystals, we are now able to experimentally observe this collective motion of electrons in solid-state systems, including graphene. We present a review of recent progress in understanding the hydrodynamic limit of electronic motion in graphene, written for physicists from diverse communities. We begin by discussing the 'phase diagram' of graphene, and the inevitable presence of impurities and phonons in experimental systems. We derive hydrodynamics, both from a phenomenological perspective and using kinetic theory. We then describe how hydrodynamic electron flow is visible in electronic transport measurements. Although we focus on graphene in this review, the broader framework naturally generalizes to other materials. We assume only basic knowledge of condensed matter physics, and no prior knowledge of hydrodynamics.
The emergence of hydrodynamic behavior in electronic flow within clean, particle-hole-symmetric systems at half filling is a nontrivial problem. Navier-Stokes (NS) equations describe the momentum flow, while experimental measurements typically capture the current flow profiles. However, in particle-hole-symmetric systems, electric current and momentum flow are entirely decoupled, because electrons and holes move in opposite directions with equal distribution functions. This makes it challenging to link NS equations to observed flow patterns. In this Letter, we demonstrate that the hydrodynamic behavior of the charge current at half filling can emerge despite the absence of momentum flow. By combining Boltzmann transport theory with numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations of clean graphene samples, we show that NS-type equations can be derived directly for the charge current, eliminating the need for any additional mechanism coupling the velocity field and charge current in explaining the experimentally observed hydrodynamic flow profiles in graphene at half filling. We show that a new transport quantity-the current diffusion coefficient-replaces viscosity and expect this description to be valid for any particle-hole-symmetric system. Our results provide new insights into the interpretation of experimental data and demonstrate how quantum Monte Carlo calculations can serve as an alternative to experiments in transport measurements to verify the kinetic theory results.
Recent ground-breaking experiments have realized strongly interacting quantum degenerate Fermi gas in a cold atomic system with tunable interactions. This has provided a table-top system which is extremely hydrodynamic in nature. This experimental realization helps us to investigate several aspects such as the interplay between nonlinearity, dissipation and dispersion. We find, for instance, that the dynamics in such a system shows near perfect agreement with a hydrodynamic theory. In collaboration with the group of John Thomas at Duke we interpreted studies of collision of two strongly interacting Fermi gases that led to shock waves which are a hallmark of nonlinear physics. Due to reasons such as the nature of interactions, higher dimensionality, these cold atomic systems are non-integrable and moreover the underlying field theory construction is mostly phenomenological in nature. On the other hand there are certain one-dimensional systems which are not only integrable but also facilitate more formal and rigorous ways of deriving the corresponding integrable field theories. One such family of models is the family of Calogero models (and their generalizations). They provide an extraordinary insight into the field of strongly correlated systems and hydrodynamics. We study the collective field theory of such models and address aspects of nonlinear physics such as Spin-Charge Interaction, Emptiness Formation Probability, Solitons etc; We derive a two-component nonlinear, nonlocal, integrable field theory. We also show that the Calogero family which is integrable even in an external harmonic trap (usually unavoidable in cold atom setups) is relatively short ranged thereby qualifying as a toy model for cold atom experiments. Transport in certain strongly correlated systems (impurity models) was studied using few low-dimensional techniques such as a 1/N diagrammatic expansion, Slave Boson Mean Field Theory and the Bethe Ansatz. A mesoscopic setup such as parallel quantum dots forms an ideal platform for such an investigation and comparison between different low-dimensional techniques. We studied transport, correlations and nature of the ground state of double quantum dots. We probed several non-perturbative aspects of this double-impurity model. For example, we showed that the RKKY interaction in closely spaced dots can be non-ferromagnetic due to its non-pertubative nature. This study helped us to point some discrepancies between different methods (such as the Numerical Renormalization Group). We give possible reasons for these discrepancies.
Electronic transport in Fermi liquids is usually Ohmic, because of momentum-relaxing scattering due to defects and phonons. These processes can become sufficiently weak in two-dimensional materials, giving rise to either ballistic or hydrodynamic transport, depending on the strength of electron-electron scattering. We show that the ballistic regime is a quantum critical point (QCP) on the regime boundary separating Ohmic and hydrodynamic transport. The QCP corresponds to a \emph{free} conformal field theory (CFT) with a dynamical scaling exponent z=1z = 1z=1. Its nontrivial aspects emerge in device geometries with shear, wherein the regime has an intrinsic universal dissipation, a nonlocal current-voltage relation, and exhibits the critical scaling of the underlying CFT. The Fermi surface has electron-hole pockets across all angular scales and the current flow has \emph{vortices} at all spatial scales. We image the fluctuations in high-definition and animate their emergence as experimental parameters are tuned to the QCP (movie links in comments). The vortices clearly demonstrate that Pauli exclusion alone can produce collective effects, with low-frequency AC transport mediated by vortex dynamics. The scale-invariant spatial structure is much richer than that of an interaction-dominated hydrodynamic regime, which only has a single vortex at the device scale. Our findings provide a theoretical framework for both interaction-free and interaction-dominated non-Ohmic transport in two-dimensional materials, as seen in several contemporary experiments.
A hallmark of electron hydrodynamics---a transport regime dominated by electron collisions---is that collisions enhance conduction and reduce dissipation, causing resistance to drop and conductance to rise with temperature (TTT). Here, the authors present a microscopic study of two-dimensional electron fluids, predicting linear-in-TTT scaling of hydrodynamic conductance. This behavior, contrasting with the T2{T}^{2}T2 scaling in three-dimensional Fermi liquids, arises from a cascade of multiple long-lived viscous modes unique to two-dimensional systems. The number of modes relevant for transport grows as TTT decreases, resulting in a non-Fermi-liquid linear-in-TTT behavior.