Non-quasiparticle transport and resistivity saturation: a view from the large-N limit

Abstract The electron dynamics in metals are usually well described by the semiclassical approximation for long-lived quasiparticles. However, in some metals, the scattering rate of the electrons at elevated temperatures becomes comparable to the Fermi energy; then, this approximation breaks down, and the full quantum-mechanical nature of the electrons must be considered. In this work, we study a solvable, large-N electron–phonon model, which at high temperatures enters the non-quasiparticle regime. In this regime, the model exhibits “resistivity saturation” to a temperature-independent value of the order of the quantum of resistivity—the first analytically tractable model to do so. The saturation is not due to a fundamental limit on the electron lifetime, but rather to the appearance of a second conductivity channel. This is suggestive of the phenomenological “parallel resistor formula”, known to describe the resistivity of a variety of saturating metals.