Thermal transport across a continuous metal-insulator transition

Abstract

The celebrated Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law is believed to be robust in metals as long as interactions between electrons preserve their fermion-quasiparticle character. We study thermal transport and the fate of the WF law close to a continuous metal-insulator transition (MIT) in the Falicov-Kimball model (FKM) using cluster-dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT). Surprisingly, as for electrical transport, we find robust and novel quantum critical scaling in thermal transport across the MIT. We unearth the deeper reasons for these novel findings in terms of (i) the specific structure of energy-current correlations for the FKM and (ii) the microscopic electronic processes which facil- itate energy transport while simultaneously blocking charge transport close to the MIT. However, within (C)DMFT, we also find that the WF law survives at T=0 in the incoherent metal right up to the MIT, even in absence of Landau quasiparticles.