Based on first-principles resistivity calculations, it was recently concluded that the thermal conductivity of iron in Earth’s core was too high to sustain thermal convection, thus invalidating such geodynamo models; new calculations including electron correlations find that electron–electron scattering is comparable to the electron–phonon scattering at high temperatures in iron, doubling the expected resistivity, and reviving conventional geodynamo models.
- Peng Zhang
- R. E. Cohen
- K. Haule
