The polaron problem and the Boltzmann equation

A mobility theory for the Feynman polaron is developed. It is shown that the Boltzmann equation for polarons is valid for weak coupling and not too high electric fields. The analytical results indicate that for E → 0 the relaxation time approximation is valid. A comparison is made of three methods to calculate the mobility in a linear electron transport theory. An approximation to the Kubo formula, a mobility calculation using path integrals by Feynman and a calculation based on the displaced Maxwell distribution function are considered. The three methods lead to equivalent results in the weak scattering and small electric field limit