English

Bulk and shear viscosities of the 2D electron liquid in a doped graphene sheet

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2016-03-08 v1

Abstract

Hydrodynamic flow occurs in an electron liquid when the mean free path for electron-electron collisions is the shortest length scale in the problem. In this regime, transport is described by the Navier-Stokes equation, which contains two fundamental parameters, the bulk and shear viscosities. In this Article we present extensive results for these transport coefficients in the case of the two-dimensional massless Dirac fermion liquid in a doped graphene sheet. Our approach relies on microscopic calculations of the viscosities up to second order in the strength of electron-electron interactions and in the high-frequency limit, where perturbation theory is applicable. We then use simple interpolation formulae that allow to reach the low-frequency hydrodynamic regime where perturbation theory is no longer directly applicable. The key ingredient for the interpolation formulae is the "viscosity transport time" τv\tau_{\rm v}, which we calculate in this Article. The transverse nature of the excitations contributing to τv\tau_{\rm v} leads to the suppression of scattering events with small momentum transfer, which are inherently longitudinal. Therefore, contrary to the quasiparticle lifetime, which goes as 1/[T2ln(T/TF)]-1/[T^2 \ln(T/T_{\rm F})], in the low temperature limit we find τv1/T2\tau_{\rm v} \sim 1/T^2.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.06030,
  title  = {Bulk and shear viscosities of the 2D electron liquid in a doped graphene sheet},
  author = {Alessandro Principi and Giovanni Vignale and Matteo Carrega and Marco Polini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.06030},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

27 pages, 6 figures, 5 appendices