Coherent description of electrical and thermal impurity-and-phonon limitedtransport in simple metals

The electrical resistivity, thermoelectric power and electronic thermal con ductivity of simple (isotropic) metals are studied in a uniform way. Starti ng from results of a variational solution of the Boltzmann equation, a gene ralized Matthiessen rule is used in order to superpose the inelastic (or no t) electron-phonon and elastic electron-impurity scattering cross sections ("matrix elements"). The temperature dependence relative to these processes is given through simple functions and physical parameters over the usually investigated range of temperature for each transport coefficient. The cohe rence of such results is emphasized.