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arXiv:2312.09977

Shear viscosity in interacting two-dimensional Fermi liquids

Ulf Gran, Eric Nilsson, Johannes Hofmann

Published Dec 15, 2023• 0 citations
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Abstract

In interaction-dominated two-dimensional electron gases at intermediate temperatures, electron transport is not diffusive as in the conventional Drude picture but instead hydrodynamic. The relevant transport coefficient in this regime is the shear viscosity. Here, we develop a numerically exact basis expansion to solve the Fermi liquid equation, and apply it to compute the shear viscosity of the electron gas with screened Coulomb interactions. Our calculations are valid at all temperatures and in particular describe the response beyond the asymptotic low-temperature limit, where perturbative approaches exist. We show that even in this low-temperature limit, there is a nonanalytic exchange contribution to the shear viscosity, highlighting the need for a full nonperturbative solution of the Fermi liquid equation. We hope that the techniques developed in this work will serve as a platform to determine the response of interacting Fermi liquids.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2312.09977

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In interaction-dominated two-dimensional electron gases at intermediate temperatures, electron transport is not diffusive as in the conventional Drude picture but instead hydrodynamic. The relevant transport coefficient in this regime is the shear viscosity. Here, we develop a numerically exact basis expansion to solve the Fermi liquid equation, and apply it to compute the shear viscosity of the electron gas with screened Coulomb interactions. Our calculations are valid at all temperatures and in particular describe the response beyond the asymptotic low-temperature limit, where perturbative approaches exist. We show that even in this low-temperature limit, there is a nonanalytic exchange contribution to the shear viscosity, highlighting the need for a full nonperturbative solution of the Fermi liquid equation. We hope that the techniques developed in this work will serve as a platform to determine the response of interacting Fermi liquids.
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)].
We compute the shear viscosity, thermal conductivity, and spin diffusivity of a Fermi gas with short-range interactions in the Fermi liquid regime of the normal phase, that is, at temperatures T much lower than the Fermi temperature T_{F} and larger than the superfluid critical temperature T_{c}. In line with recent advances in the precision of cold atom experiments, we provide exact results up to the second order in the interaction strength. We extend the Landau-Salpeter equation to compute the collision amplitude beyond the forward-scattering limit, covering all collisions on the Fermi surface. We treat the collision kernel exactly, leading to significant corrections beyond relaxation-time or variational approximations. The transport coefficients, as functions of the s wave scattering length a and Fermi wave number k_{F}, follow (1+γk_{F}a)/a^{2} up to corrections of order O(a^{0}), with a positive coefficient γ for the viscosity and negative one for the thermal conductivity and spin diffusivity.
Shear viscosity of a two-dimensional Fermi liquid is found to be a nonanalytic function of temperature. In contrast to the quasiparticle lifetime that is determined by the forward-scattering processes, the main contribution to the viscosity arises from the quasiparticle scattering in the Cooper channel. The viscosity is enhanced by the logarithmic singularity of the vertex part. This singular behavior can manifest itself in the two-dimensional electron transport, and in the momentum relaxation of fermions in atomic traps.
Modern quantum materials host a wide range of electronic phases in which transport properties are governed by strong interactions and collective effects. This thesis investigates charge, heat, and momentum transport in interacting electronic systems across different theoretical frameworks, ranging from Fermi liquid theory to strongly coupled strange metals.The first part of the thesis focuses on two-dimensional Fermi liquids at finite temperature, where rapid electron-electron scattering can give rise to hydrodynamic behavior. A kinetic-theory framework allowing an exact treatment of quasiparticle distribution functions beyond the asymptotic low-temperature regime is used to compute the full spectrum of collective modes, providing a detailed characterization of long-lived odd-parity excitations and the intermediate transport regime between ballistic and hydrodynamic flow. The same framework is employed to determine the shear viscosity of interacting electron liquids beyond conventional perturbative limits.The second part of the thesis concerns strongly interacting quantum systems where the quasiparticle picture breaks down.Holographic duality is used to study transport and thermoelectric response in quantum critical systems subject to periodic potentials, providing a controlled framework for momentum relaxation and magnetotransport in non-Fermi liquids. The thesis further develops holographic models of collective charge dynamics in systems with dynamical electromagnetism, including bulk plasmons and surface plasmon polaritons, and explores connections between Fermi surface physics and holographic gauge-field dynamics.
The hydrodynamic regime of electron transport has been recently realized in conductors with ultralow densities of defects. Although relaxation processes in two-dimensional (2D) fluids have been studied in many theoretical works, the viscosity of the realistic Fermi gas of 2D electrons having a quadratic energy spectrum and interacting by Coulomb's law has not been reliably determined either in theory or in experiment. Here, we construct a theory of viscosity and thermal conductivity in such a system. We compare the calculated viscosity of the 2D electron Fermi gas and the previously known viscosity of a 2D Fermi liquid with available experimental data extracted from the hydrodynamic negative magnetoresistance of the best-quality GaAs quantum wells. Based on this comparison, we argue that measurements of the temperature dependence of the viscosity can allow us to trace the transition between an electron Fermi liquid and a Fermi gas.
Eighty years ago Eyring proposed that the shear viscosity of a liquid, ηηη, has a quantum limit η≳nℏη\gtrsim n\hbarη≳nℏ where nnn is the density of the fluid. Using holographic duality and the AdS/CFT correspondence in string theory Kovtun, Son, and Starinets (KSS) conjectured a universal bound ηs≥ℏ4πkB\fracη{s}\geq \frac{\hbar}{4πk_{B}}sη​≥4πkB​ℏ​ for the ratio between the shear viscosity and the entropy density, sss. Using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory (DMFT) we calculate the shear viscosity and entropy density for a fermionic fluid described by a single band Hubbard model at half filling. Our calculated shear viscosity as a function of temperature is compared with experimental data for liquid 3^{3}3He. At low temperature the shear viscosity is found to be well above the quantum limit and is proportional to the characteristic Fermi liquid 1/T21/T^{2}1/T2 dependence, where TTT is the temperature. With increasing temperature and interaction strength UUU there is significant deviation from the Fermi liquid form. Also, the shear viscosity violates the quantum limit near the crossover from coherent quasi-particle based transport to incoherent transport (the bad metal regime). Finally, the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density is found to be comparable to the KSS bound for parameters appropriate to liquid 3^{3}3He. However, this bound is found to be strongly violated in the bad metal regime for parameters appropriate to lattice electronic systems such as organic charge transfer salts.