Emergence of quasimetallic state in a disordered two-dimensional electron gas due to strong interactions

The interrelation between disorder and interactions in two-dimensional electron liquid is studied beyond weak-coupling perturbation theory. Strong repulsion significantly reduces the electronic density of states on the Fermi level. This makes the electron liquid more rigid and strongly suppresses elastic scattering off impurities. As a result the weak localization, although ultimately present at zero temperature and infinite sample size, is unobservable at experimentally accessible temperature at high enough densities. Therefore practically there exists a well-defined metallic state. We study diffusion of electrons in this state and find that the diffusion pole is significantly modified due to “mixture” with static photons similar to the Anderson-Higgs mechanism in superconductivity. As a result several effects stemming from the long-range nature of diffusion such as the Aronov-Altshuler logarithmic corrections to conductivity are less pronounced. © 2003 The American Physical Society.