Viscosity and scale invariance in the unitary Fermi gas

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2010.10.002MaRDI QIDQ2431332zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors T. Enss, Rudolf Haussmann, Wilhelm Zwerger

Publication date 13 April 2011

Published in Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1008.0007

zbMATH Keywords

degenerate Fermi gasentropy densityscale invariancestatic shear viscositysuperfluid

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical mechanics of gases (82D05) Statistical mechanics of plasmas (82D10) Statistical mechanics of superfluids (82D50)

Abstract: We compute the shear viscosity of the unitary Fermi gas above the superfluid transition temperature, using a diagrammatic technique that starts from the exact Kubo formula. The formalism obeys a Ward identity associated with scale invariance which guarantees that the bulk viscosity vanishes identically. For the shear viscosity, vertex corrections and the associated Aslamazov-Larkin contributions are shown to be crucial to reproduce the full Boltzmann equation result in the high-temperature, low fugacity limit. The frequency dependent shear viscosity $eta(omega)$ exhibits a Drude-like transport peak and a power-law tail at large frequencies which is proportional to the Tan contact. The weight in the transport peak is given by the equilibrium pressure, in agreement with a sum rule due to Taylor and Randeria. Near the superfluid transition the peak width is of the order of $0.5T_F$, thus invalidating a quasiparticle description. The ratio $eta/s$ between the static shear viscosity and the entropy density exhibits a minimum near the superfluid transition temperature whose value is larger than the string theory bound $hbar/(4pi{k}_B)$ by a factor of about seven.

Review text

The main question discussed in the paper is where the minimum of the viscosity to entropy density ratio appears for the non-relativistic unitary gas and what the associated value of the viscosity and entropy is. First, it is defined the microscopic model for unitary gas and discussed its scale invariance. Then, the basic correlation functions that allow one to calculate the shear viscosity from first principles via a Kondo formula are found together with a discussion of hydrodynamic relations and sum rules. A qualitative consideration of the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity in the classical and in the deep superfluid limits is fulfilled as well as near the superfluid transition temperature. Further, the transport integral equations and their solution within a self-consistent Luttinger-Ward formalism are derived. The real part of the frequency-dependent viscosity (FDV) is determined from a diagrammatic method that evaluates the stress tensor correlation function in the exact Kubo formula. Within a conserving approximation that respects all symmetries and the associated conservation laws, it is obtained the FVD in the normal phase. The obtained results for the FDV show a Drude-like transport peak around the frequency zero. Near the transition temperature to the superfluid phase of the unitary gas, the obtained width clearly invalidates a quasiparticle description of the viscous transport in this regime. The weight of the Drude peak is equal to the pressure at all temperatures consistent with a sum rule derived by Taylor and Randeria. For large frequencies is stated a crossover from the Drude peak to an inverse square root tail FDV whose amplitude is proportional to the Tan contact density. In the high-temperature limit the authors compliment their numerical solution of the transport integral equations by an analytical solution to leading order in the fugacity. They confirm that (i) the Kubo formula yields exactly the same expression as the Boltzmann equation in this limit, and (ii) the vertex corrections, in particular the Aslamazov-Larkin contributions, are crucial even in the classical limit and increase the scattering time by a factor of almost three. Finally, the authors derive Ward identities associated with the scale invariance of the unitary gas and show that they are obeyed within their approximation for the bulk viscosity vertices at all frequencies and temperatures. It is shown that the minimum in the viscosity to entropy density ratio for the non-relativistic unitary gas is about a factor of seven above the Kovtun-Son-Starinets bound, rather close to the value for the relativistic quark-gluon plasma.

Recommendations

• Phonon contribution to the shear viscosity of a superfluid Fermi gas in the unitarity limit
• The shear viscosity of holographic superfluids
• S-matrix approach to quantum gases in the unitary limit. I: The two-dimensional case
• Viscosity spectral functions of resonating fermions in the quantum virial expansion
• Low temperatures shear viscosity of a two-component dipolar Fermi gas with unequal population

Cites work

• Condensed matter and AdS/CFT
• Conformal non-relativistic hydrodynamics from gravity
• Conservation Laws and Correlation Functions
• Energetics of a strongly correlated Fermi gas
• General coordinate invariance and conformal invariance in nonrelativistic physics: unitary Fermi gas
• Holographic duality with a view toward many-body physics
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1966277 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5236280 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5246537 (Why is no real title available?)
• Is there a ``most perfect fluid consistent with quantum field theory?
• Large momentum part of a strongly correlated Fermi gas
• Lectures on holographic methods for condensed matter physics
• Long-time tails, weak localization, and classical and quantum critical behavior
• Nonrelativistic inverse square potential, scale anomaly, and complex extension
• Self-Consistent Approximations in Many-Body Systems
• Theory of Many-Particle Systems. I
• Triangle-generation in topological D-brane categories

Cited in

(12)

• The BCS-BEC crossover: from ultra-cold Fermi gases to nuclear systems
• Low temperatures shear viscosity of a two-component dipolar Fermi gas with unequal population
• Shear viscosity in the strong interaction regime of a \(p\)-wave superfluid Fermi gas
• Viscosity spectral functions of resonating fermions in the quantum virial expansion
• The shear viscosity of a trapped Bose-condensed gas
• Phonon contribution to the shear viscosity of a superfluid Fermi gas in the unitarity limit
• S-matrix approach to quantum gases in the unitary limit. I: The two-dimensional case
• Conformal symmetry and non-relativistic second-order fluid dynamics
• Strongly correlated quantum fluids: ultracold quantum gases, quantum chromodynamic plasmas and holographic duality
• Bulk viscosity of resonantly interacting fermions in the quantum virial expansion
• Dispersion of first sound in a weakly interacting ultracold Fermi liquid
• Single-particle spectral density of the unitary Fermi gas: Novel approach based on the operator product expansion, sum rules and the maximum entropy method

This page was built for publication: Viscosity and scale invariance in the unitary Fermi gas

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2431332)