Thermal Transport and Non-Mechanical Forces in Metals

Abstract

We discuss contributions to the thermopower in an electron fluid. A simple argument based on Newton's second law with the pressure gradient as the force suggests that the thermopower is given by a thermodynamic derivative, viz., the entropy per particle, rather than being an independent transport coefficient. The resolution is the existence of an entropic force that results from a coupling between the mass current and the heat current in the fluid. We also discuss and clarify some aspects of a recent paper (Phys. Rev. B {\bf 102}, 214306 (2020)) that provided a method for exactly solving electronic transport equations in the low-temperature limit.