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Physica Scripta

Transport in Disordered Many-Body Systems

Giancarlo Calvanese Strinati, Claudio Castellani, C. Di Castro

Published Jan 1, 1989• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A description of quantum transport for electrons in the presence of a random impurity potential is provided in terms of a kinetic equation, which is obtained from the diagrammatic structure for the linear response functions. When the electron-electron interaction is neglected, the kinetic equation is of the Boltzmann type, with an effective scattering kernel that signals localization effects. With the further inclusion of the interaction, a suitable distribution function for the energy of the quasiparticles can be introduced even in the presence of strong disorder. In this case the kinetic equation has the diffusive form, with diffusion coefficient and Landau interaction parameters that get renormalized by the interplay of disorder and interaction. The quasiparticles kinetic equation is also shown to contain all known results for the hydrodynamic correlation functions.

DOI
10.1088/0031-8949/1989/t29/024

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A description of quantum transport for electrons in the presence of a random impurity potential is provided in terms of a kinetic equation, which is obtained from the diagrammatic structure for the linear response functions. When the electron-electron interaction is neglected, the kinetic equation is of the Boltzmann type, with an effective scattering kernel that signals localization effects. With the further inclusion of the interaction, a suitable distribution function for the energy of the quasiparticles can be introduced even in the presence of strong disorder. In this case the kinetic equation has the diffusive form, with diffusion coefficient and Landau interaction parameters that get renormalized by the interplay of disorder and interaction. The quasiparticles kinetic equation is also shown to contain all known results for the hydrodynamic correlation functions.
Abstract. We develop a diagrammatic scattering theory for interacting bosons in a three-dimensional, weakly disordered potential. Based on a microscopic N-body scattering theory, we identify the relevant diagrams including elastic and inelastic collision processes that are sufficient to describe diffusive quantum transport. By taking advantage of the statistical properties of the weak disorder potential, we demonstrate how the N-body dynamics can be reduced to a nonlinear integral equation of Boltzmann type for the single-particle diffusive flux. Our theory reduces to the Gross-Pitaevskii mean field description in the limit where only elastic collisions are taken into account. However, even at weak interaction strength, inelastic collisions lead to energy redistribution between the bosons – initially prepared all at the same single-particle energy – and thereby induce thermalization of the single-particle current. In addition, we include also weak localization effects and determine the coherent corrections to the incoherent transport in terms of the coherent backscattering signal. We find that inelastic collisions lead to an enhancement of the backscattered cone in a narrow spectral window for increasing interaction strength. ar
We develop a diagrammatic scattering theory for interacting bosons in a three-dimensional, weakly disordered potential. Based on a microscopic N -body scattering theory, we identify the relevant diagrams including elastic and inelastic collision processes that are sufficient to describe diffusive quantum transport. By taking advantage of the statistical properties of the weak disorder potential, we demonstrate how the N -body dynamics can be reduced to a nonlinear integral equation of Boltzmann type for the single-particle diffusive flux. Our theory reduces to the Gross–Pitaevskii mean field description in the limit where only elastic collisions are taken into account. However, even at weak interaction strength, inelastic collisions lead to energy redistribution between the bosons—initially prepared all at the same single-particle energy—and thereby induce thermalization of the single-particle current. In addition, we include also weak localization effects and determine the coherent corrections to the incoherent transport in terms of the coherent backscattering signal. We find that inelastic collisions lead to an enhancement of the backscattered cone in a narrow spectral window for increasing interaction strength.
The many-body linear response expressions obtained in previous papers [J. Math. Phys. 19, 1345 (1978); 20, 2573 (1979)] are applied to systems of weakly interacting particles. General expressions for the susceptibility and conductivity in such systems are obtained. The diagonal parts depend on the scattering processes, for which we consider interactions with bosons with mass and electron-phonon interaction. For elastic collisions simple closed forms result. For general two-body collisions, the closed expressions are cumbersome, except when the current is due to collisional current through localized states, such as Landau orbits; in that event a generalized Adams-Holstein result is obtained. The nondiagonal electrical conductivity is shown to be of paramount importance for the quantum mechanical Hall effect. We also derive quantum mechanical Boltzmann equations, both for the diagonal occupancy operator 〈nζ〉t and for the nondiagonal operator 〈c+ζ′ cζ\〉t. The total Boltzmann equation is shown to be fully equivalent with the linear response results. Finally, in the last part we derive the Boltzmann equation for the Wigner function of inhomogeneous systems. In the classical limit this yields the usual Boltzmann transport equation. This equation has therefore been obtained by first principles from the von Neumann equation.
Renormalized expressions for the transport coefficients of a normal quantum fluid are derived from a nonlocal kinetic equation. As was shown in the classical case by Forster and Martin and by R\'esibois, the expressions for the transport coefficients separate naturally into "kinetic" and "direct" parts. The kinetic terms are proportional to matrix elements of the inverse of the kinetic kernel, and have the same general structure as the "bare" transport coefficients obtained from a local Boltzmann equation. The direct terms are proportional to matrix elements of the kernel itself, and have no counterpart in calculations based on a local kinetic equation, as in the kinetic theory of gases. We evaluate the transport coefficients using the weak-coupling approximation to the kernel derived in a previous paper. Results are given, first, for both Bose and Fermi fluids at arbitrary temperature, and then for the Fermi fluid near T=0T=0T=0, where complete solutions are obtained. It is found that the direct parts of the shear viscosity and thermal conductivity are of higher order in TTT than the kinetic parts, and are therefore negligible at very low temperature. The kinetic parts have the same leading temperature dependence as the predictions of the Landau theory. For the bulk viscosity, however, the direct and kinetic contributions begin at the same order (T2{T}^{2}T2) in the temperature.
The phenomenological theory of a Fermi liquid is generalized to nonequilibrium conditions. Landau's theory is reformulated to include fluctuations of the distribution function and quasiparticle energy. The method of fluctuation in kinetic equations is used to establish the collision integral of the quasiparticle Boltzmann equation. This collision integral is expressed in terms of the parameters of Landau's theory, and includes dynamic screening effects. The results are compared with recent theories of transport in Fermi liquids.
We investigate a many-body localization transition based on Boltzmann transport theory. Introducing weak-localization corrections into a Boltzmann equation, Hershfield and Ambegaokar rederived the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient [Phys. Rev. B 34, 2147 (1986)]. We generalize this Boltzmann equation framework, introducing electron-electron interactions into the Hershfield-Ambegaokar Boltzmann transport theory based on the study of Zala-Narozhny-Aleiner [Phys. Rev. B 64, 214204 (2001)]. Here, not only Altshuler-Aronov corrections but also dephasing effects are taken into account. As a result, we obtain a self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient in terms of the disorder strength and temperature, which extends the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation in the presence of electron correlations. Solving our self-consistent equation numerically, we find a many-body localization insulator-metal transition, where a metallic phase appears from dephasing effects dominantly instead of renormalization effects at high temperatures. Although this mechanism is consistent with that of recent seminal papers [Ann. Phys. (NY) 321, 1126 (2006); Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 206603 (2005)], we find that our three-dimensional metal-insulator transition belongs to the first-order transition, which differs from the Anderson metal-insulator transition described by the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent theory. We speculate that a bimodal distribution function for the diffusion coefficient is responsible for this first-order phase transition.