Spatially resolved electrical transport in correlated quantum materials

Abstract

The resistivity of a metal is easy to measure but hard to compute. Indeed, some of the biggest mysteries in condensed matter physics revolve around simple bulk transport coefficients: e.g., the origin of T-linear resistivity in strange metals.  In the coming decade, technologies such as nitrogen vacancy center magnetometry enable us to measure spatially local transport (e.g. wave number dependence in conductivity) with increasing ease, yet relatively few theories have actually calculated this quantity. 

In this talk, I will highlight 3 recent experimental and theoretical developments towards using spatially local transport to reveal unconventional non-Ohmic transport in metals: (1) The observation of (weakly) viscous fluid flow in graphene in multiple experiments; (2) our use of holographic duality (AdS/CMT) to find tractable models for spatially local transport on Placnkian scales near certain quantum critical points;  (3) our prediction of “analogue viscous current flow” in a 2D superconducting thin film just above the critical temperature.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06567