How heat propagates in liquid $^3$He

TL;DR

This paper investigates heat propagation in liquid helium-3, revealing a transition from quasiparticle-dominated transport to collective mode conduction at higher temperatures, with implications for fundamental physical bounds and heat carriers.

Contribution

It proposes a novel collective sound mode as a heat carrier in liquid $^3$He, explaining experimental thermal conductivity data across a wide temperature range.

Findings

Thermal diffusivity bounded by fundamental constants.

Identification of a $2k_F$ sound mode as a heat carrier.

Thermal conductivity explained by quasiparticles and sound contributions.

Abstract

In Landau's Fermi liquid picture, transport is governed by scattering between quasi-particles. The normal liquid $^3$He conforms to this picture but only at very low temperature. Here, we show that the deviation from the standard behavior is concomitant with the fermion-fermion scattering time falling below the Planckian time, $\frac{\hbar}{k_{\rm B}T}$ and the thermal diffusivity of this quantum liquid is bounded by a minimum set by fundamental physical constants and observed in classical liquids. This points to collective excitations (a sound mode) as carriers of heat. We propose that this mode has a wavevector of 2$k_F$ and a mean free path equal to the de Broglie thermal length. This would provide an additional conducting channel with a $T^{1/2}$ temperature dependence, matching what is observed by experiments. The experimental data from 0.007 K to 3 K can be accounted for, with a margin of 10\%, if thermal conductivity is the sum of two contributions: one by quasi-particles (varying as the inverse of temperature) and and another by sound (following the square root of temperature).