Energy relaxation and thermalization of hot electrons in quantum wires

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical study of how hot electrons relax and thermalize in quantum wires, highlighting the roles of spin, temperature, and collision processes, with results aligning with recent experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a controlled perturbative theory for energy relaxation in quantum wires, emphasizing three-body collisions and the differential relaxation of particles and holes.

Findings

Relaxation in 1D requires three-body collisions.

Particles relax faster than holes at finite temperature.

Co-moving carriers thermalize more rapidly than counterpropagating ones.

Abstract

We develop a theory of energy relaxation and thermalization of hot carriers in real quantum wires. Our theory is based on a controlled perturbative approach for large excitation energies and emphasizes the important roles of the electron spin and finite temperature. Unlike in higher dimensions, relaxation in one-dimensional electron liquids requires three-body collisions and is much faster for particles than holes which relax at nonzero temperatures only. Moreover, co-moving carriers thermalize more rapidly than counterpropagating carriers. Our results are quantitatively consistent with a recent experiment.