Electrical and Thermal Transport in Inhomogeneous Luttinger Liquids

TL;DR

This paper extends the Luttinger liquid model to include finite excitation lifetimes, analyzing electrical and thermal transport in disordered, interacting quantum wires, and identifying conditions for classical hydrodynamic behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Luttinger liquid framework that incorporates finite bosonic excitation lifetimes, accounting for disorder and strong interactions in quantum wire transport.

Findings

Derived electrical and thermal resistances for inhomogeneous wires

Identified temperature scale for classical hydrodynamic regime

Connected transport properties to thermal conductivity and bulk viscosity

Abstract

We study the transport properties of long quantum wires by generalizing the Luttinger liquid approach to allow for the finite lifetime of the bosonic excitations. Our theory accounts for long-range disorder and strong electron interactions, both of which are common features of experiments with quantum wires. We obtain the electrical and thermal resistances and thermoelectric properties of such quantum wires. We cast our results in terms of the thermal conductivity and bulk viscosity of the electron liquid and give the temperature scale above which the transport can be described by classical hydrodynamics.