Temperature dependence of resistivity at the transition to a charge density wave state in rare-earth tritellurides

Abstract

About a half of the Fermi surface in rare-earth tritellurides, RTe3 becomes gapped below the transition to a charge-density-wave (CDW) state, as revealed by ARPES data. However, the observed jump in resistivity during the CDW transition is less than 20%. Previously this phenomenon was explained by hypothesizing a very slow evolution of CDW energy gap below transition temperature in RTe3 compounds, which contradicts the X-ray measurements. Here we show that this weak change in resistivity can be explained in the framework of standard mean-field temperature dependence of the CDW energy gap in agreement with X-ray data. The change of resistivity caused by CDW is weak because the decrease in conducting electron density at the Fermi level is almost compensated by the decrease in their scattering rate. We calculate resistivity in RTe3 compounds using the Boltzmann transport equation and the mean-field description of the CDW state, and obtain a good agreement with experimental data.