paper

Resistivity of non-Galilean-invariant Fermi- and non-Fermi liquids

arXiv:1204.3591 · doi:10.3952/lithjphys.52207

Abstract

While it is well-known that the electron-electron (\emph{ee}) interaction cannot affect the resistivity of a Galilean-invariant Fermi liquid (FL), the reverse statement is not necessarily true: the resistivity of a non-Galilean-invariant FL does not necessarily follow a T^2 behavior. The T^2 behavior is guaranteed only if Umklapp processes are allowed; however, if the Fermi surface (FS) is small or the electron-electron interaction is of a very long range, Umklapps are suppressed. In this case, a T^2 term can result only from a combined--but distinct from quantum-interference corrections-- effect of the electron-impurity and \emph{ee} interactions. Whether the T^2 term is present depends on 1) dimensionality (two dimensions (2D) vs three dimensions (3D)), 2) topology (simply- vs multiply-connected), and 3) shape (convex vs concave) of the FS. In particular, the T^2 term is absent for any quadratic (but not necessarily isotropic) spectrum both in 2D and 3D. The T^2 term is also absent for a convex and simply-connected but otherwise arbitrarily anisotropic FS in 2D. The origin of this nullification is approximate integrability of the electron motion on a 2D FS, where the energy and momentum conservation laws do not allow for current relaxation to leading --second--order in T/E_F (E_F is the Fermi energy). If the T^2 term is nullified by the conservation law, the first non-zero term behaves as T^4. The same applies to a quantum-critical metal in the vicinity of a Pomeranchuk instability, with a proviso that the leading (first non-zero) term in the resistivity scales as T^{\frac{D+2}{3}} (T^{\frac{D+8}{3}}). We discuss a number of situations when integrability is weakly broken, e.g., by inter-plane hopping in a quasi-2D metal or by warping of the FS as in the surface states of Bi_2Te_3 family of topological insulators.

Submitted to a special issue of the Lithuanian Journal of Physics dedicated to the memory of Y. B. Levinson

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