Electron–Electron Scattering and Resistivity in Non-Centrosymmetric Metals

Abstract

The quadratic low-temperature dependence of resistance in ordinary metals is determined by the momentum relaxation due to electron–electron scattering in the presence Umklapp processes and scattering on impurities. In metals without inversion center spin–orbit interaction of electrons with crystal lattice lifts spin degeneracy of electron states and splits each band on two bands. The temperature dependence of electron–electron collisions scattering rate is found using the matrix kinetic equation including the electron-impurity and electron–electron intra and inter band scattering. It is shown that in clean enough case when the energy of band splitting exceeds the electron-impurity scattering rate but at the same time it is much smaller than the Fermi energy the square low-temperature dependence of resistivity is still valid.