Strong suppression of electron convection in Dirac and Weyl semimetals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that electron convection in Dirac and Weyl semimetals is significantly suppressed due to Coulomb forces and impurity interactions, especially in 3D materials, making convection challenging to observe experimentally.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the suppression mechanisms of electron convection in Dirac and Weyl semimetals, highlighting the dominant inhibitory effects of Coulomb forces and momentum relaxation.

Findings

Electron convection is strongly inhibited in 3D and 2D Dirac/Weyl semimetals.

Coulomb forces less affect 2D materials like graphene.

Momentum relaxation due to impurities and phonons significantly suppresses convection.

Abstract

It is shown that the convective instability in electron fluids in three- and two-dimensional (3D and 2D) Dirac and Weyl semimetals is strongly inhibited. The major obstacles for electron convection are the effects of the Coulomb forces and the momentum relaxation related to the interaction with impurities and phonons. The effect of the Coulomb forces is less pronounced in 2D materials, such as graphene. However, momentum relaxation still noticeably inhibits convection making it very difficult to achieve in practice.