Freely Flowing Currents and Electric Field Expulsion in Viscous Electronics

Abstract

Electronic fluids bring into hydrodynamics a new setting: equipotential flow sources embedded inside the fluid. Here we show that the nonlocal relation between the current and electric field due to momentum-conserving interparticle collisions leads to a total or partial field expulsion from such flows. That results in freely flowing currents in the bulk and a boundary jump in the electric potential at current-injecting electrodes. We derive a new type of boundary conditions, appropriate for the case. We then analyze current distribution in free flows, discuss how the field expulsion depends upon the geometry of the electrode, and link the phenomenon to the breakdown of conformal invariance.