Parquet approach to nonlocal vertex functions and electrical conductivity of disordered electrons

Abstract

A diagrammatic technique for two-particle vertex functions is used to describe systematically the influence of spatial quantum coherence and backscattering effects on transport properties of noninteracting electrons in a random potential. In analogy with many-body theory we construct parquet equations for topologically distinct {\em nonlocal} irreducible vertex functions into which the {\em local} one-particle propagator and two-particle vertex of the coherent-potential approximation (CPA) enter as input. To complete the two-particle parquet equations we use an integral form of the Ward identity and determine the one-particle self-energy from the known irreducible vertex. In this way a conserving approximation with (Herglotz) analytic averaged Green functions is obtained. We use the limit of high spatial dimensions to demonstrate how nonlocal corrections to the $d=\infty$ (CPA) solution emerge. The general parquet construction is applied to the calculation of vertex corrections to the electrical conductivity. With the aid of the high-dimensional asymptotics of the nonlocal irreducible vertex in the electron-hole scattering channel we derive a mean-field approximation for the conductivity with vertex corrections. The impact of vertex corrections onto the electronic transport is assessed quantitatively within the proposed mean-field description on a binary alloy.