Collinear scattering and long-lived excitations in two-dimensional electron fluids

Abstract

For a long time, it has been thought that 2D Fermi gases could support long-lived excitations, thanks to the collinear quasiparticle scattering controlled by phase space constraints at a 2D Fermi surface. We present a direct calculation that reveals such excitations. The excitation lifetimes are found to exceed the fundamental bound set by Landau Fermi-liquid theory by a factor as large as $(T_F/T)^\alpha$ with $\alpha \approx 2$. These excitations represent Fermi-surface modulations of an odd parity, one per each odd angular momentum. To explain this surprising behavior, we employ a connection between the linearized quantum kinetic equation and the dynamics of a fictitious quantum particle moving in a 1D reflectionless ${\rm sech^2}$ potential. In this framework, we identify the long-lived excitations in Fermi gases as zero modes that arise from supersymmetry.