Strongly enhanced hole-phonon coupling in the metallic state of the dilute two-dimensional hole gas

We have studied the temperature dependent phonon emission rate P(T) of a strongly interacting (r_s ≥ 22) dilute 2D GaAs hole system using a standard carrier heating technique. In the still poorly understood metallic state, we observe that P(T) changes from P(T) ∼ T⁵ to P(T) ∼ T⁷ above 100 mK, indicating a crossover from screened piezoelectric (PZ) coupling to screened deformation potential (DP) coupling for hole-phonon scattering. Quantitative comparison with theory shows that the long range PZ coupling between holes and phonons has the expected magnitude; however, in the metallic state, the short range DP coupling between holes and phonons is almost 20 times stronger than expected from theory. The density dependence of P(T) shows that it is easier to cool low-density 2D holes in GaAs than higher density 2D hole systems.