The Luttinger liquid model, which describes interacting electrons in a single-channel quantum wire, is completely integrable in the absence of disorder and as such does not exhibit any relaxation to equilibrium. We consider relaxation processes induced by inelastic electron-electron interactions in a disordered Luttinger liquid, focusing on the equilibration rate and its essential differences from the electron-electron scattering rate as well as the rate of phase relaxation. In the first part of the paper, we review the basic concepts in the disordered Luttinger liquid at equilibrium. These include the elastic renormalization, dephasing, and interference-induced localization. In the second part, we formulate a conceptually important framework for systematically studying the nonequilibrium properties of the strongly correlated (non-Fermi) Luttinger liquid. We derive a coupled set of kinetic equations for the fermionic and bosonic distribution functions that describe the evolution of the nonequilibrium Luttinger liquid. Remarkably, the energy equilibration rate in the conducting disordered quantum wire (at sufficiently high temperature, when the localization effects are suppressed by dephasing) is shown to be of the order of the rate of elastic scattering off disorder, independent of the interaction constant and temperature.
The temperature ($T$) and frequency ($ω$) dependent conductivity of weakly disordered Luttinger liquids is calculated in a systematic way both by perturbation theory and from a finite temperature renormalization group (RG) treatment to leading order in the disorder strength. Whereas perturbation theory results in $ω/T$ scaling of the conductivity such scaling is violated in the RG traetment. We also determine the non-linear field dependence of the conductivity, whose power law scaling is different from that of temperature and frequency dependence.
We develop a kinetic theory for strongly correlated disordered one-dimensional electron systems out of equilibrium, within the Luttinger liquid model. In the absence of inhomogeneities, the model exhibits no relaxation to equilibrium. We derive kinetic equations for electron and plasmon distribution functions in the presence of impurities and calculate the equilibration rate $γ_E$. Remarkably, for not too low temperature and bias voltage, $γ_E$ is given by the elastic backscattering rate, independent of the strength of electron-electron interaction, temperature, and bias.
Recent NMR experiments by Singer et al. [Singer et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 236403 (2005).] showed a deviation from Fermi-liquid behavior in carbon nanotubes with an energy gap evident at low temperatures. Here, a comprehensive theory for the magnetic field and temperature dependent NMR 13C spin-lattice relaxation is given in the framework of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. The low temperature properties are governed by a gapped relaxation due to a spin gap (~ 30K), which crosses over smoothly to the Luttinger liquid behaviour with increasing temperature.
We study the influence of spin on the quantum interference of interacting electrons in a single-channel disordered quantum wire within the framework of the Luttinger liquid (LL) model. The nature of the electron interference in a spinful LL is particularly nontrivial because the elementary bosonic excitations that carry charge and spin propagate with different velocities. We extend the functional bosonization approach to treat the fermionic and bosonic degrees of freedom in a disordered spinful LL on an equal footing. We analyze the effect of spin-charge separation at finite temperature both o…
We study the phase transition between conducting and insulating states taking place in disordered multi-channel Luttinger liquids with inter-channel interactions. We derive renormalisation group equations which are perturbative in disorder but nonperturbative in interaction. In the vicinity of the simultaneous phase transition in all channels, these equations become a set of coupled Berezinskii--Kosterlitz--Thouless equations, which we analyze within two models: an array of identical wires and a two-channel model with distinct channels. We show that a competition between disorder and interacti…
We study the transport properties of interacting electrons in a disordered quantum wire within the framework of the Luttinger liquid model. The conductivity at finite temperature is nonzero only because of inelastic electron-electron scattering. We demonstrate that the notion of weak localization is applicable to the strongly correlated one-dimensional electron system. We calculate the relevant dephasing rate, which for spinless electrons is governed by the interplay of electron-electron interaction and disorder, thus vanishing in the clean limit.
We explore the life time of excitations in a dispersive Luttinger liquid. We perform a bosonization supplemented by a sequence of unitary transformations that allows us to treat the problem in terms of weakly interacting quasiparticles. The relaxation described by the resulting Hamiltonian is analyzed by bosonic and (after a refermionization) by fermionic perturbation theory. We show that the the fermionic and bosonic formulations of the problem exhibit a remarkable strong-weak-coupling duality. Specifically, the fermionic theory is characterized by a dimensionless coupling constant $λ= m^*l^2…
We have measured the temperature dependence of the conductance in long V-groove quantum wires (QWRs) fabricated in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. Our data is consistent with recent theories developed within the framework of the Luttinger liquid model, in the limit of weakly disordered wires. We show that for the relatively small amount of disorder in our QWRs, the value of the interaction parameter g is g=0.66, which is the expected value for GaAs. However, samples with a higher level of disorder show conductance with stronger temperature dependence, which does not allow their treatment in the …
A crossover theory connecting Altshuler-Aronov electron-electron interaction corrections and Luttinger liquid behavior in quasi-1D disordered conductors has been formulated. Based on an interacting non-linear sigma model, we compute the tunneling density of states and the interaction correction to the conductivity, covering the full crossover.
The energy relaxation in the spin-polarized disordered electron systems is studied in the diffusive regime. We derived the quantum kinetic equation in which the kernel of electron-electron collision integral explicitly depends on the electron magnetization. As the consequence, the inelastic scattering rate is found to have non-monotonic dependence on the spin polarization of the electron system.
Understanding the effects of nonequilibrium on strongly interacting quantum systems is a challenging problem in condensed matter physics. In dimensions greater than one, interacting electrons can often be understood within Fermi-liquid theory where low-energy excitations are weakly interacting quasiparticles. On the contrary, electrons in one dimension are known to form a strongly-correlated phase of matter called a Luttinger liquid (LL), whose low-energy excitations are collective density waves, or plasmons, of the electron gas. Here we show that spectroscopy of locally injected high-energy e…
Luttinger liquid theory describes one-dimensional electron systems in terms of non-interacting bosonic excitations. In this approximation thermal excitations are decoupled from the current flowing through a quantum wire, and the conductance is quantized. We show that relaxation processes not captured by the Luttinger liquid theory lead to equilibration of the excitations with the current and give rise to a temperature-dependent correction to the conductance. In long wires, the magnitude of the correction is expressed in terms of the velocities of bosonic excitations. In shorter wires it is con…
The influence of inelastic relaxation time on the intrinsic spin Hall effects in a disordered two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba interaction is studied, which clarifies the controversy of impurity effects in the system. We reveal that, due to the existence of inelastic scattering, the spin Hall conductivity does not vanish when the impurity concentration diminishes to zero no matter it is non-magnetically or magnetically disordered. The spin accumulation is evaluated by using the obtained spin Hall conductivity, and an alternate route is suggested to verify the intrinsic spin Hall effect…
We discuss the violation of spin-charge separation in generic nonlinear Luttinger liquids and investigate its effect on the relaxation and thermal transport of genuine spin-1/2 electron liquids in ballistic quantum wires. We identify basic scattering processes compatible with the symmetry of the problem and conservation laws that lead to the decay of plasmons into the spin modes. We derive a closed set of coupled kinetic equations for the spin-charge excitations and solve the problem of thermal conductance of interacting electrons for an arbitrary relation between the quantum wire length and s…
We theoretically investigate transport in a spin incoherent one dimensional electron system, which may be realized in quantum wires at low electron density and finite temperature. Both the pure and disordered cases are considered, both in finite wires and in the thermodynamic limit. The effect of Fermi liquid leads attached to the finite length system is also addressed. In the infinite system, we find a phase diagram identical to that obtained for a spinless Luttinger Liquid, provided we make the identification $g=2g_c$, where $g$ is the interaction parameter in a spinless Luttinger Liquid and…
We develop a theory of finite-temperature momentum-resolved tunneling spectroscopy (MRTS) for disordered, interacting two-dimensional topological-insulator edges. The MRTS complements conventional electrical transport measurement in characterizing the properties of the helical Luttinger liquid edges. Using standard bosonization technique, we study low-energy spectral function and the MRTS tunneling current, providing a detailed description controlled by disorder, interaction, and temperature, taking into account Rashba spin orbit coupling, interedge interaction and distinct edge velocities. Ou…
We consider a Luttinger liquid (LL) connected to two reservoirs when the two sample-reservoir interface resistances $R_{S}$ and $R_{D}$ are arbitrary (not necessarily quantized at half-the-quantum of resistance). We compute exactly the dynamical impedance of a Luttinger liquid and generalize earlier expressions for its dynamical conductance in the following situations. (i) We first consider a gated Luttinger liquid. It is shown that the Luttinger liquid parameters $u$ and $K$ and the interface resistances $R_{S}$ and $% R_{D}$ can be experimentally determined by measuring both the dynamical co…
We explore the weak-strong-coupling Bose-Fermi duality in a model of a single-channel integer or fractional quantum Hall edge state with a finite-range interaction. The system is described by a chiral Luttinger liquid with non-linear dispersion of bosonic and fermonic excitations. We use the bosonization, a unitary transformation, and a refermionization to map the system onto that of weakly interacting fermions at low temperature $T$ or weakly interacting bosons at high $T$. We calculate the equilibration rate which is found to scale with temperature as $T^5$ and $T^{14}$ in the high-temperatu…
We consider two mechanisms of spin relaxation in disordered graphene. i) Spin relaxation due to curvature spin orbit coupling caused by ripples. ii) Spin relaxation due to the interaction of the electronic spin with localized magnetic moments at the edges. We obtain analytical expressions for the spin relaxation times, tau_SO and tau_J due to both mechanisms and estimate their values for realistic parameters of graphene samples. We obtain that spin relaxation originating from these mechanisms is very weak and spin coherence is expected in disordered graphene up to samples of length L ~ 1 micro…
We review some of the recent results on equilibration of one-dimensional quantum liquids. The low-energy properties of these systems are described by the Luttinger liquid theory, in which the excitations are bosonic quasiparticles. At low temperatures the relaxation of the gas of excitations toward full equilibrium is exponentially slow. In electronic Luttinger liquids these relaxation processes involve backscattering of electrons and give rise to interesting corrections to the transport properties of one-dimensional conductors. We focus on the phenomenological theory of the equilibration of a…
A spectroscopic method is applied to measure the inelastic quasi-particle relaxation rate in a disordered Fermi liquid. The quasi-particle relaxation rate, $γ$ is deduced from the magnitude of fluctuations in the local density of states, which are probed using resonant tunneling through a localized impurity state. We study its dependence on the excitation energy $E$ measured from the Fermi level. In a disordered metal (heavily doped GaAs) we find $γ\propto E^{3/2}$ within the experimentally accessible energy interval, in agreement with the Altshuler-Aronov theory for electron-electron interact…
A one-dimensional system of interacting electrons out of equilibrium is studied in the framework of the Luttinger liquid model. We analyze several setups and develop a theory of tunneling into such systems. A remarkable property of the problem is the absence of relaxation in energy distribution functions of left- and right-movers, yet the presence of the finite dephasing rate due to electron-electron scattering, which smears zero-bias-anomaly singularities in the tunneling density of states.
Phononless plasmon assisted thermally activated transport through a long disordered array of finite length quantum wires is investigated analytically. Generically strong electron plasmon interaction in quantum wires results in a qualitative change of the temperature dependence of thermally activated resistance in comparison to phonon assisted transport. At high temperatures, the thermally activated resistance is determined by the Luttinger liquid interaction parameter of the wires.
We study nuclear relaxation in the presence of localized electrons in a two-dimensional electron gas in a disordered delta-doped semiconductor heterostructure and show that this method can reliably probe their magnetic interactions and possible long-range order. In contrast, we argue that transport measurements, the commonly employed tool, may not sometimes distinguish between spatial disorder and long-range order. We illustrate the utility of using the nuclear relaxation method to detect long-range order by analyzing a recent proposal made on the basis of transport measurements, on the sponta…
We performed electronic transport measurements on 1D InAs quantum wires. In sufficiently disordered wires, transport is dominated by Coulomb blockade, and the conductance can be well described by tunneling through a quantum dot embedded between two one-dimensional Luttinger liquid wires. In contrast to previous experiments in other material systems, in our system the conductance difference between peak to valley decreases with decreasing temperature for several consecutive peaks. This phenomenon is theoretically expected to occur only for strongly interacting systems with small Luttinger inter…
We develop a theory of tunneling spectroscopy of interacting electrons in a non-equilibrium quantum wire coupled to reservoirs. The problem is modelled as an out-of-equilibrium Luttinger liquid with spatially dependent interaction. The interaction leads to the renormalization of the tunneling density of states, as well as to the redistribution of electrons over energies. Energy relaxation is controlled by plasmon scattering at the boundaries between regions with different interaction strength, and affects the distribution function of electrons in the wire as well as that of electrons emitted f…
Temperature-driven transition between momentum-resolved and disordered averaged Coulomb drag in 1D systems
University of Florida（佛罗里达大学）；National High Magnetic Field Laboratory（国家高磁场实验室）；University of Wisconsin–Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Sandia National Laboratories（桑迪亚国家实验室）
In this work we discuss extensions of the pioneering analysis by Dzyaloshinskii and Larkin of correlation functions for one-dimensional Fermi systems, focusing on the effects of quasiparticle relaxation enabled by a nonlinear dispersion. Throughout the work we employ both, the weakly interacting Fermi gas picture and nonlinear Luttinger liquid theory to describe attenuation of excitations and explore the fermion-boson duality between both approaches. Special attention is devoted to the role of spin-exchange processes, effects of interaction screening, and integrability. Thermalization rates fo…
We show that, in low dimensional conductors, the quasiparticle decay and the relaxation of the phase are not exponential processes. In quasi-one dimension, they scale as $e^{- (t/τ_N)^{3/2}}$ where the characteristic time $τ_{in}$, identical for both processes, is a power $T^{2/3}$ of the temperature. This result implies a distribution of relaxation times.
We calculate the low-energy tunneling density of states $ν(ε, T)$ of an $N$-channel disordered wire, taking into account the electron-electron interaction non-perturbatively. The finite scattering rate $1/τ$ results in a crossover from the Luttinger liquid behavior at higher energies, $ν\proptoε^α$, to the exponential dependence $ν(ε, T=0)\propto \exp{(-ε^*/ε)}$ at low energies, where $ε^*\propto 1/(N τ)$. At finite temperature $T$, the tunneling density of states depends on the energy through the dimensionless variable $ε/\sqrt{ε^* T}$. At the Fermi level $ν(ε=0,T) \propto \exp (-\sqrt{ε^*/T}…
Mesoscopic low frequency noise in electrical characteristics of disordered conductors is a result of dynamic quantum interference pattern due to motion of defects. This has been firmly established by demonstrating the characteristic partial suppression of the noise amplitude by the dephasing effect of a weak external magnetic field. The spatial correlation of the quantum interference pattern in disordered normal state conductors is invariably limited by the exponential phase relaxation due to inelastic processes. In this paper we develop a quantitative theory of the mesoscopic noise in the s-w…
We study the spin relaxation in graphene due to magnetic moments induced by defects. We propose and employ in our studies a microscopic model that describes magnetic impurity scattering processes mediated by charge puddles. This model incorporates the spin texture related to the defect-induced state. We calibrate our model parameters using experimentally-inferred values. The results we obtain for the spin relaxation times are in very good agreement with experimental findings. Our study leads to a comprehensive explanation for the short spin relaxation times reported in the experimental literat…
We consider a quantum wire double junction system with each wire segment described by a spinless Luttinger model, and study theoretically shot noise in this system in the sequential tunneling regime. We find that the non-equilibrium plasmonic excitations in the central wire segment give rise to qualitatively different behavior compared to the case with equilibrium plasmons. In particular, shot noise is greatly enhanced by them, and exceeds the Poisson limit. We show that the enhancement can be explained by the emergence of several current-carrying processes, and that the effect disappears if t…
The spin-dependent transport properties of armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of extrinsic spin-orbit coupling induced by a random distribution of Nickel adatoms is studied. By combining a recursive Green's function formalism with density functional theory, we explore the influence of ribbon length and metal adatom concentration on the conductance. At a given length, we observed a significant enhancement of the spin-flip channel around resonances and at energies right above the Fermi level. We also estimate the spin-relaxation length, finding values on the order of tens of micromete…
Luttinger semimetals have quadratic band crossings at the Brillouin zone-center in three spatial dimensions. Coulomb interactions in a model that describes these systems stabilize a non-trivial fixed point associated with a non-Fermi liquid state, also known as the Luttinger-Abrikosov-Beneslavskii phase. We calculate the optical conductivity $σ(ω) $ and the dc conductivity $σ_{dc} (T) $ of this phase, by means of the Kubo formula and the Mori-Zwanzig memory matrix method, respectively. Interestingly, we find that $σ(ω) $, as a function of the frequency $ω$ of an applied ac electric field, is c…
We study the electron-phonon relaxation (dephasing) rate in disordered semiconductors and low-dimensional structures. The relaxation is determined by the interference of electron scattering via the deformation potential and elastic electron scattering from impurities and defects. We have found that in contrast to the destructive interference in metals, which results in the Pippard ineffectiveness condition for the electron-phonon interaction, the interference in semiconducting structures substantially enhances the effective electron-phonon coupling. The obtained results provide an explanation …
The existence of long-lived non-equilibrium states without showing thermalization, which has previously been demonstrated in time evolution of ultracold atoms, suggests the possibility of their spatial analogue in transport behavior of interacting electrons in solid-state systems. Here we report long-lived non-equilibrium states in one-dimensional edge channels in the integer quantum Hall regime. An indirect heating scheme in a counterpropagating configuration is employed to generate a non-trivial binary spectrum consisting of high- and low-temperature components. This unusual spectrum is sust…
The Friedel oscillations caused due to an impurity located at one edge of a disordered interacting quantum wire are calculated numerically. The electron density in the system's ground state is determined using the DMRG method, and the Friedel oscillations data is extracted using the density difference between the case in which the wire is coupled to an impurity and the case where the impurity is uncoupled. We show that the power law decay of the oscillations occurring for an interacting clean 1D samples described by Luttinger liquid theory, is multiplied by an exponential decay term due to the…
For spin-3/2 holes the anisotropic part of the instantaneous Luttinger Hamiltonian can be represented as an effective quadrupole coupling. We investigate the hole spin relaxation process induced by nonadiabatic fluctuations of this interaction. The obtained analytical solution of the stochastic Liouville equation describes the polarization decay of spin-3/2 holes in all regimes of momentum scattering: from collision-dominated to ballistic. Our results create the basis for quantitative interpretation of recent experiments and elucidate the striking difference between the hole spin relaxation pr…
Quantum physics in one spatial dimension is remarkably rich, yet even with strong interactions and disorder, surprisingly tractable. This is due to the fact that the low-energy physics of nearly all one-dimensional systems can be cast in terms of the Luttinger liquid, a key concept that parallels that of the Fermi liquid in higher dimensions. Although there have been many theoretical proposals to use linear chains and ladders of Josephson junctions to create novel quantum phases and devices, only modest progress has been made experimentally. One major roadblock has been understanding the role …
We study the heat relaxation in current biased metallic films in the regime of strong electron-phonon coupling. A thermal gradient in the direction normal to the film is predicted, with a spatial temperature profile determined by the temperature-dependent heat conduction. In the case of strong phonon scattering the heat conduction occurs predominantly via the electronic system and the profile is parabolic. This regime leads to the linear dependence of the noise temperature as a function of voltage bias, in spite of the fact that all the dimensions of the film are large compared to the electron…
The effects of impurity scattering on a general Abelian fractional quantum Hall (FQH) edge state are analyzed within the chiral-Luttinger-liquid model of low-energy edge dynamics. We find that some disordered edges can have several different phases characterized by different symmetries. The stable impurity edge phases are in general more symmetric than the original clean system and demonstrate the phenomenon of dynamical symmetry restoration at low energies and long length scales. The phase transitions between different disordered phases are characterized by broken symmetries and obey Landau's…
We develop a valley-dependent envelope function theory that can describe the effects of arbitrary configurations of interface steps and miscuts on the qubit relaxation time. For a given interface roughness, we show how our theory can be used to find the valley-dependent dipole matrix elements, the valley splitting, and the spin-valley coupling as a function of the electromagnetic fields in a Si/SiGe quantum dot spin qubit. We demonstrate that our theory can quantitatively reproduce and explain the result of experimental measurements for the spin relaxation time with only a minimal set of free …
Conduction electrons in disordered metals and heavily doped semiconductors at low temperatures preserve their phase coherence for a long time: phase relaxation time $τ_ϕ$ can be orders of magnitude longer than the momentum relaxation time. The large difference in these time scales gives rise to well known effects of weak localization, such as anomalous magnetoresistance. Among other interesting characteristics, study of these effects provide quantitative information on the dephasing rate $1/τ_ϕ$. This parameter is of fundamental interest: the relation between $\hbar/τ_ϕ$ and the temperature $T…
We have measured directly the thermal conductance between electrons and phonons in ultra-thin Hf and Ti films at millikelvin temperatures. The experimental data indicate that electron-phonon coupling in these films is significantly suppressed by disorder. The electron cooling time $τ_ε$ follows the $T^{-4}$-dependence with a record-long value $τ_ε=25ms$ at $T=0.04K$. The hot-electron detectors of far-infrared radiation, fabricated from such films, are expected to have a very high sensitivity. The noise equivalent power of a detector with the area $1\mum^2$ would be $(2-3)10^{-20}W/Hz^{1/2}$, w…
In one-dimensional electronic systems with strong repulsive interactions, charge excitations propagate much faster than spin excitations. Such systems therefore have an intermediate temperature range [termed the "spin-incoherent Luttinger liquid'" (SILL) regime] where charge excitations are "cold" (i.e., have low entropy) whereas spin excitations are "hot." We explore the effects of charge-sector disorder in the SILL regime in the absence of external sources of equilibration. We argue that the disorder localizes all charge-sector excitations; however, spin excitations are protected against ful…
This paper is intended to demonstrate that there is no need to revise the existing theory of the transport properties of disordered conductors in the so-called weak localization regime. In particular, we demonstrate explicitly that recent attempts to justify theoretically that the dephasing rate (extracted from the magnetoresistance) remains finite at zero temperature are based on the profoundly incorrect calculation. This demonstration is based on a straightforward evaluation of the effect of the electron-electron interaction on the weak localization correction to the conductivity of disorder…
It has been shown that changes in the energy of a system of nonwetting-liquid clusters confined in a random nanoporous medium in the process of relaxation can be written in the quasiparticle approximation in the form of the sum of the energies of local (metastable) configurations of liquid clusters interacting with clusters in the connected nearest pores. The energy spectrum and density of states of the local configuration have been calculated. It has been shown that the relaxation of the state of the system occurs through the scenario of self-organized criticality (SOC). The process is charac…
We study the effect of disordered ripples on the conductivity of monolayer graphene flakes. We calculate the relaxation times and the Boltzmann conductivities associated with two mechanisms. First, we study the conductivity correction due to an external in-plane magnetic field $B_\parallel$. Due to the irregular local curvature found at graphene sheets deposited over a substrate, $B_\parallel$ can be mapped into an effective random magnetic field perpendicular to the graphene surface. Second, we study the electron momentum relaxation due to intrinsic pseudo magnetic fields originated from defo…
