Electron mobility in simple fluids near the critical point

Abstract

We consider the effect of critical fluctuations on the transport of thermalized electrons injected into the inert fluids, and make the following predictions: As the critical point is approached the mobility will decrease because of increased scattering by the long-wavelength fluctuations. Near the critical point the electrons will become localized within long-wavelength density fluctuations. The mobility will not fall to zero, however, because the density fluctuations move and decay and the electrons are thus not permanently trapped at a fixed site. We estimate the mobility in this regime to be about four orders of magnitude below that at the onset of localization.

One of us (ARB) would like to acknowledge financial support from the Science Research Council.