Exact Perturbative Expansion of the Transport Coefficients of a Normal Low-Temperature Fermi Gas with Contact Interactions
Pierre-Louis Taillat, Hadrien Kurkjian
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.
arXiv:2502.03423•Physical Review Letters•Sep 9, 2025•1 citation