Quantum aspects of "hydrodynamic" transport from weak electron-impurity scattering

Recent experimental observations of apparently hydrodynamic electronic transport have generated much excitement. However, theoretical understanding of the observed non-local transport (whirlpool) effects and parabolic (Poiseuille-like) current profiles has remained at the level of a phenomenological analogy with classical fluids. A more microscopic account of genuinely hydrodynamic electronic transport is difficult because such behavior requires strong interactions to diffuse momentum. Here, we show that the non-local conductivity effects actually observed in experiments can indeed occur for free fermion systems in the presence of weak disorder. By explicit calculation of the conductivity at finite wavevector $\sigma({\bf q})$ for selected weakly disordered free fermion systems, we propose experimental strategies for demonstrating distinctive quantum effects in non-local transport at odds with the expectations of classical kinetic theory. Our results imply that the observation of whirlpools or other "hydrodynamic" effects does not guarantee the dominance of electron-electron scattering over electron-impurity scattering.