Shear viscosity and spin diffusion in a two-dimensional Fermi gas

Abstract

We investigate the temperature dependence of the shear viscosity and spin diffusion in a two-dimensional Fermi gas with contact interactions, as realized in ultra-cold atomic gases. We describe the transport coefficients in terms of a Boltzmann equation and present a full numerical solution for the degenerate gas. In contrast to previous works we take the medium effects due to finite density fully into account. This effect reduces the viscosity to entropy ratio, $\eta/s$, by a factor of three, and similarly for spin diffusion. The trap averaged viscosity agrees well with recent measurements by Vogt et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 070404 (2012)].