Transport Theory for Electron-Phonon Interactions in Metals

Abstract

By extending Migdal's approximation for electron-phonon interactions in metals to the nonequilibrium case, it is possible to derive a set of transport equations which are exact to order ${\left(\frac{m}{M}\right)}^{\frac{1}{2}}$. This coupled set of equations for the electron and phonon distribution functions is correct even in the situation in which the electronic excitation spectrum has considerable width and structure so that one might not expect a priori that there would be well-defined quasiparticles. Nonetheless, one of the forms of the electronic transport equation is identical to the transport equation suggested by Landau for the case in which the quasiparticle energy is well defined. The transport equations may be written in two different forms: In the first form, the electronic distribution function is labeled by a momentum vector; in the second, the labels are excitation energy and the position on the Fermi surface. Despite the width in the spectrum, the momentum-space form is identical with the Landau quasiparticle theory. The energy space form is slightly simpler because no wave function renormalization constants appear in the definition of the energies or in the scattering matrix elements. In fact, in the case in which there is space dependence but no time dependence this form of the transport equations looks identical to the weak-coupling Boltzmann equations. This identity is used to prove that to the accuracy of the adiabatic approximation the several transport coefficients are completely unchanged by the many-body effects of the electron-phonon interaction. These coefficients, which include the spin diffusivity and the viscosity as well as the ordinary conductivities and all the classical galvano-magnetothermal effects are thus correctly predicted by the standard weak-coupling theory. Many-body effects are also absent in $\frac{\mathrm{dn}}{d\mu }$ and the spin susceptibility; however, they do appear in the specific heat and in the response to time-dependent disturbances.