English

Graphene - a nearly perfect fluid

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2009-07-14 v2 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

Hydrodynamics and collision dominated transport are crucial to understand the slow dynamics of many correlated quantum liquids. The ratio \eta/s of the shear viscosity \eta to the entropy density s is uniquely suited to determine how strongly the excitations in a quantum fluid interact. We determine \eta/s in clean undoped graphene using a quantum kinetic theory. As a result of the quantum criticality of this system the ratio is smaller than in many other correlated quantum liquids and, interestingly, comes close to a lower bound conjectured in the context of the quark gluon plasma. We discuss possible consequences of the low viscosity, including pre-turbulent current flow.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0903.4178,
  title  = {Graphene - a nearly perfect fluid},
  author = {Markus Mueller and Joerg Schmalian and Lars Fritz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.4178},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4+ pages, 2 figures, published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:44:00.753Z