Microscopic description of the low- and intermediate-temperature crossover

Develop a complete microscopic description of the low- and intermediate-temperature crossover in near-critical HgTe quantum wells, including the simultaneous contributions of disorder-induced percolation, Dirac-hole transport, and interparticle scattering.

Background

The paper models charge transport near charge neutrality using a self-consistent carrier-population calculation and a non-perturbative relaxation-time treatment for the high-temperature hybrid regime of moderately degenerate Dirac electrons and Boltzmann heavy holes. However, the low- and intermediate-temperature regime involves several mechanisms simultaneously: disorder-induced percolation through zero-energy channels, transport by Dirac holes, and interaction-driven scattering between different carrier species.

The authors state that a complete microscopic treatment of this crossover has not been achieved. Resolving it would provide a unified theory connecting the low-temperature symmetric Dirac plasma, the narrow three-component regime, and the higher-temperature Dirac-electron–heavy-hole regime.