Transport signatures of plasmon fluctuations in electron hydrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how plasmon fluctuations influence transport properties in two-dimensional electron systems within the hydrodynamic regime, highlighting their role in drag resistance and the importance of hydrodynamic parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of plasmon fluctuation mechanisms affecting transport in electron hydrodynamics, emphasizing their impact on drag resistance and the necessity of hydrodynamic quantities.

Findings

Plasmons contribute minimally to shear viscosity and thermal conductivity.

Plasmon resonances significantly enhance drag resistance in bilayer devices.

Fluctuation-driven dissipative effects depend on hydrodynamic parameters like conductivity, viscosity, and plasmon dispersion.

Abstract

In two-dimensional electron systems, plasmons are gapless and long-lived collective excitations of propagating charge density oscillations. We study the fluctuation mechanism of plasmon-assisted transport in the regime of electron hydrodynamics. We consider pristine electron liquids where charge fluctuations are thermally induced by viscous stresses and intrinsic currents, while attenuation of plasmons is determined by the Maxwell mechanism of charge relaxation. We show that while the contribution of plasmons to the shear viscosity and thermal conductivity of a Fermi liquid is small, plasmon resonances in the bilayer devices enhance the drag resistance. In systems without Galilean invariance, fluctuation-driven contributions to dissipative coefficients can be described only in terms of hydrodynamic quantities: intrinsic conductivity, viscosity, and plasmon dispersion relation.