Dissipative and Hall Viscosity of a Disordered 2D Electron Gas

Hydrodynamic charge transport is at the center of recent research efforts. Of particular interest is the nondissipative Hall viscosity, which conveys topological information in clean gapped systems. The prevalence of disorder in the real world calls for a study of its effect on viscosity. Here we address this question, both analytically and numerically, in the context of disordered noninteracting 2D electrons. Analytically, we employ the self-consistent Born approximation, explicitly taking into account the modification of the single-particle density of states and the elastic transport time due to the Landau quantization. The reported results interpolate smoothly between the limiting cases of a weak (strong) magnetic field and strong (weak) disorder. In the regime of a weak magnetic field our results describe the quantum (Shubnikov–de Haas type) oscillations of the dissipative and Hall viscosity. For strong magnetic fields we characterize the effects of the disorder-induced broadening of the Landau levels on the viscosity coefficients. This is supplemented by numerical calculations for a few filled Landau levels. Our results show that the Hall viscosity is surprisingly robust to disorder.