Band-Edge Quasiparticles from Electron-Phonon Coupling and Resistivity Saturation.

Abstract

We address the problem of resistivity saturation observed in materials such as the A-15 compounds. To do so, we calculate the resistivity for the Hubbard-Holstein model in infinite spatial dimensions to second order in on-site repulsion U≤D and to first order in (dimensionless) electron-phonon coupling strength λ≤0.5, where D is the half bandwidth. We identify a unique mechanism to obtain two parallel quantum conducting channels: low-energy and band-edge high-energy quasi-particles. We identify the source of the hitherto unremarked high-energy quasiparticles as a positive slope in the frequency dependence of the real part of the electron self-energy. In the presence of phonons, the self-energy grows linearly with the temperature at high T, causing the resistivity to saturate. As U is increased, the saturation temperature is pushed to higher values, offering a mechanism by which electron correlations destroy saturation.