Electron-electron and electron-hole pairing in graphene structures

The superconducting pairing of electrons in doped graphene due to in-plane and out-of-plane phonons is considered. It is shown that the structure of the order parameter in the valley space substantially affects conditions of the pairing. Electron-hole pairing in graphene bilayer in the strong coupling regime is also considered. Taking into account retardation of the screened Coulomb pairing potential shows a significant competition between the electron-hole direct attraction and their repulsion due to virtual plasmons and single-particle excitations.Comment: 13 pages with 4 figures; accepted for publication in Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc.

Electron Viscosity, Current Vortices and Negative Nonlocal Resistance in Graphene

Quantum-critical states of diverse strongly correlated systems are predicted to feature universal collision-dominated transport resembling that of viscous fluids. However, investigation of these phenomena has been hampered by the lack of known macroscopic signatures of the hydrodynamic regime at criticality. Here we identify vorticity as such a signature and link it with an easily verifiable striking macroscopic transport behavior. Produced by the viscous flow, vorticity can drive electric current against an applied field, resulting in a negative nonlocal voltage. We argue that the latter may play the same role for the viscous regime as zero electrical resistance does for superconductivity. Besides offering a diagnostic of viscous transport which distinguishes it from ohmic currents, the sign-changing electrical response affords a robust tool for directly measuring the viscosity-to-resistivity ratio. The strongly interacting electron-hole plasma in high-mobility graphene provides a bridge between quantum-criticality and the wealth of fluid mechanics phenomena.Comment: submitted for publication, July 201

Dynamic correlations in symmetric electron-electron and electron-hole bilayers

The ground-state behavior of the symmetric electron-electron and electron-hole bilayers is studied by including dynamic correlation effects within the quantum version of Singwi, Tosi, Land, and Sjolander (qSTLS) theory. The static pair-correlation functions, the local-field correction factors, and the ground-state energy are calculated over a wide range of carrier density and layer spacing. The possibility of a phase transition into a density-modulated ground state is also investigated. Results for both the electron-electron and electron-hole bilayers are compared with those of recent diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) simulation studies. We find that the qSTLS results differ markedly from those of the conventional STLS approach and compare in the overall more favorably with the DMC predictions. An important result is that the qSTLS theory signals a phase transition from the liquid to the coupled Wigner crystal ground state, in both the electron-electron and electron-hole bilayers, below a critical density and in the close proximity of layers (d <~ r_sa_0^*), in qualitative agreement with the findings of the DMC simulations.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 2 table

Effects of Electron-Electron Scattering on Electron-Beam Propagation in a Two-Dimensional Electron-Gas

We have studied experimentally and theoretically the influence of electron-electron collisions on the propagation of electron beams in a two-dimensional electron gas for excess injection energies ranging from zero up to the Fermi energy. We find that the detector signal consists of quasiballistic electrons, which either have not undergone any electron-electron collisions or have only been scattered at small angles. Theoretically, the small-angle scattering exhibits distinct features that can be traced back to the reduced dimensionality of the electron system. A number of nonlinear effects, also related to the two-dimensional character of the system, are discussed. In the simplest situation, the heating of the electron gas by the high-energy part of the beam leads to a weakening of the signal of quasiballistic electrons and to the appearance of thermovoltage. This results in a nonmonotonic dependence of the detector signal on the intensity of the injected beam, as observed experimentally.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure