English

Lorentz ratio of a compensated metal

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2018-12-27 v3

Abstract

A violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law in a metal can be quantified by comparing the Lorentz ratio, L=κρ/TL=\kappa\rho/T, where κ\kappa is the thermal conductivity and ρ\rho is the electrical resistivity, with the universal Sommerfeld constant, L0=(π2/3)(kB/e)2L_0=(\pi^2/3) (k_B/e)^2. We obtain the Lorentz ratio of a clean compensated metal with intercarrier interaction as the dominant scattering mechanism by solving exactly the system of coupled integral Boltzmann equations. The Lorentz ratio is shown to assume a particular simple form in the forward-scattering limit: L/L0=Θ2/2L/L_0=\overline{\Theta^2}/2, where Θ\Theta is the scattering angle. In this limit, L/L0L/L_0 can be arbitrarily small. We also show how the same result can be obtained without the benefit of an exact solution. We discuss how a strong downward violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law in a type-II Weyl semimetal WP2_2 can be explained within our model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.01463,
  title  = {Lorentz ratio of a compensated metal},
  author = {Songci Li and Dmitrii L. Maslov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.01463},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

published version, 15 pages, 2 figures