The Kadowaki-Woods ratio is not universal.

What is it about?

Universal quantities are quantities we can measure that always take the same value, independent of chemical and structural details. It had been thought that the Kadowaki-Woods ratio was one such quantity, and that deviations from the expected value implied that the system had unusual properties. We calculate a correction factor to the Kadowaki-Woods ratio that is not universal and show that it correctly predicts experimental data in a very wide range of systems.

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Why is it important?

The Kadowaki-Woods ratio has been used as an indicator of unusual physics in many materials. We have shown that nothing unusual is needed to explain these results in all the cases we tested. By using our new ratio as an indicator instead, one can be confident that significant deviations are in fact signs of something unexpected; something not included in our calculation.