The tunnel current of a Luttinger liquid with a finite density of strong impurities is calculated using an instanton approach. For very low temperatures $T$ or electric fields $E$ the (nonlinear) conductivity is of variable range hopping (VRH) type as for weak pinning. For higher temperatures or fields the conductivity shows power law behavior corresponding to a crossover from multi- to single-impurity tunneling. For even higher $T$ and not too strong pinning there is a second crossover to weak pinning. The determination of the position of the various crossover lines both for strong and weak pinning allows the construction of the global regime diagram.
Electron backscattering in a Luttinger liquid with an impurity is investigated in the presence of zero point motion of the phonon lattice. The impurity can mean either a mass defect, an elastic defect or a pinning defect. The phonon spectrum is then affected by the presence of the defect, which enters in the renormalization group equations for backscattering. The RG equation becomes dependent on the energy cutoff for finite Debye frequency $ω_D$ giving rise to finite energy effects. We compute the local density of states and show how the renormalization group flow is affected by a finite $ω_D$…
Ballistic transport of helical edge modes in two-dimensional topological insulators is protected by time-reversal symmetry. Recently it was pointed out [1] that coupling of non-interacting helical electrons to an array of randomly anisotropic Kondo impurities can lead to a spontaneous breaking of the symmetry and, thus, can remove this protection. We have analyzed effects of the interaction between the electrons using a combination of the functional and the Abelian bosonization approaches. The suppression of the ballistic transport turns out to be robust in a broad range of the interaction str…
We show that the paradigmatic Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) description of two local magnetic moments coupled to propagating electrons breaks down in helical Luttinger Liquids when the electron interaction is stronger than some critical value. In this novel regime, the Kondo effect overwhelms the RKKY interaction over all macroscopic inter-impurity distances. This phenomenon is a direct consequence of the helicity (realized, for instance, at edges of a time-reversal invariant topological insulator) and does not take place in usual (non-helical) Luttinger Liquids.
We investigate the response of 3D Luttinger semimetals to localized charge and spin impurities as a function of doping. The strong spin-orbit coupling of these materials strongly influences the Friedel oscillations and RKKY interactions. This can be seen at short distances with an $1/r^4$ divergence of the responses, and anisotropic behavior. Certain of the spin-orbital signatures are robust to temperature, even if the charge and spin oscillations are smeared out, and give an unusual diamagnetic Pauli susceptibility. We compare our results to the experimental literature on the bismuth-based ha…
We report on quantum interference between a pair of counterpropagating quantum Hall edge states that are separated by a high quality tunnel barrier. Observed Aharonov-Bohm oscillations are analyzed in terms of resonant tunneling between coupled Luttinger liquids that creates bound electronic states between pairs of tunnel centers that act like interference slits. We place a lower bound in the range of 20-40 $μ$m for the phase coherence length and directly confirm the extended phase coherence of quantum Hall edge states.
We calculate the finite-temperature local spectral weight (LSW) of a Luttinger liquid with an "open" (hard wall) boundary. Close to the boundary the LSW exhibits characteristic oscillations indicative of spin-charge separation. The line shape of the LSW is also found to have a Fano-like asymmetry, a feature originating from the interplay between electron-electron interaction and scattering off the boundary. Our results can be used to predict how edges and impurities influence scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) of one-dimensional electron systems at low temperatures and voltage bias. Applicati…
We study the problem of underscreened Kondo physics in an interacting electronic system modeled by a Luttiger Liquid (LL). We find that the leading temperature dependence of thermodynamical quantities like the specific heat, spin susceptibility are Fermi Liquid like in nature. However, anomalous power law exponents are seen in the subleading terms. We also discuss possible realizations through single and double quantum dot configurations coupled to LL leads and its consequences for electronic transport. The leading low temperature transport behavior is seen to exhibit in general, non Fermi liq…
In this work, analytical expressions for the Green function of a Luttinger liquid are derived with one and two mobile impurities (heavy particles) using a combination of bosonization and perturbative approaches. The calculations are done in the random phase approximation (RPA) limit using the powerful non-chiral bosonization technique (NCBT) which is nothing but the resummation of the most singular parts of the RPA terms of the Green function expanded out in powers of the forward scattering between fermions with the source of inhomogeneities treated exactly. The force acting on the heavy parti…
We improve the recently developed functional renormalization group (fRG) for impurities and boundaries in Luttinger liquids by including renormalization of the two-particle interaction, in addition to renormalization of the impurity potential. Explicit flow-equations are derived for spinless lattice fermions with nearest neighbor interaction at zero temperature, and a fast algorithm for solving these equations for very large systems is presented. We compute spectral properties of single-particle excitations, and the oscillations in the density profile induced by impurities or boundaries for ch…
We study the statistics of charge transfer through an impurity in a chiral Luttinger liquid (realized experimentally as a quantum point contact in a fractional quantum Hall edge state device). Taking advantage of the integrability we present a procedure for obtaining the cumulant generating function of the probability distribution to transfer a fixed amount of charge through the constriction. Using this approach we analyze in detail the behaviour of the third cumulant C_3 as a function of applied voltage, temperature and barrier height. We predict that C_3 can be used to measure the fractional…
We provide analytic expressions for the Green's functions in position-frequency space as well as for the tunneling density of states of various Luttinger liquids at zero temperature: the standard spinless and spinful Luttinger liquids, the helical Luttinger liquid at the edge of a topological insulator, and the Luttinger liquid that appears either together with an ordering transition of nuclear spins in a one-dimensional conductor, or in spin-orbit split quantum wires in an external magnetic field. The latter system is often used to mimic a helical Luttinger liquid, yet we show here that it ex…
We evaluate the spectral function of interacting fermions in one dimension. Contrary to the Tomonaga-Luttinger model, our treatment accounts for the nonlinearity of the free fermion spectrum. In a striking departure from the Luttinger liquid theory, the spectrum nonlinearity restores the main feature of the Fermi liquid: a Lorentzian peak in the spectral function on the particle mass-shell. At the same time, the spectral function displays a power-law singularity on the hole mass-shell, similar to that in the Luttinger liquid.
Thermodynamic and transport properties of a two dimensional circular quantum dot are studied theoretically at zero magnetic field. In the limit of a large confining potential, where the dot spectrum exhibits a shell structure, it is argued that both spectral and transport properties should exhibit Luttinger liquid behavior. These predictions are verified by direct numerical diagonalization. The experimental implications of such Luttinger liquid characteristics are discussed.
The exact Green's functions of a finite-size Luttinger Liquid (LL) connected to impedances are computed at zero and finite temperature. Bosonization for a LL with Impedance boundary conditions (IBC) is proven to hold. The LL with open boundary conditions (for both Neumann and Dirichlet cases) is explicitly recovered as a special limit when one has infinite impedances. Additionally when the impedances are equal to the characteristic impedance of the Luttinger liquid then the finite Luttinger liquid is shown to be effectively equivalent to an infinite Luttinger liquid.
A Cooper-pair or electron-hole splitter is a device capable of spatially separating entangled fermionic quasiparticles into mesoscopic solid-state systems such as quantum dots or quantum wires. We theoretically study such a splitter based on a pair of helical Luttinger liquids, which arise naturally at the edges of a quantum spin Hall insulator. Equipping each helical liquid with a beam splitter, current-current cross correlations can be used to construct a Bell inequality whose violation would indicate nonlocal orbital entanglement of the injected electrons and/or holes. Due to Luttinger-liqu…
Transport through a superconductor-Luttinger liquid junction is considered. When the interaction in the Luttinger liquid is repulsive, the resistance of the junction with a sufficiently clean interface shows nonmonotonic temperature- or voltage-dependence due to the competition between the superconductivity and the repulsive interaction. The result is discussed in connection with recent experiments on single-wall carbon nanotubes in contact with superconducting leads.
We investigate the low-energy properties of (quasi) helical and fractional helical Luttinger liquids. In particular, we calculate the Drude peak of the optical conductivity, the density of states, as well as charge transport properties of the interacting system with and without attached Fermi liquid leads at small and large (compared to the gap) frequencies. For fractional wires, we find that the low energy tunneling density of states vanishes. The conductance of a fractional helical Luttinger liquid is non-integer. It is independent of the Luttinger parameters in the wire, despite the intrica…
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…
Using the appropriate fractionalization mechanism, we correctly derive the temperature (T) and interaction dependence of the electron lifetime $τ_F$ in Luttinger liquids. For strong enough interactions, we report that $(Tτ_F)\propto g$, with $g\ll 1$ being the standard Luttinger exponent; This reinforces that electrons are {\it not} good quasiparticles. We immediately emphasize that this is of importance for the detection of electronic interferences in ballistic 1D rings and carbon nanotubes, inducing ``dephasing'' (strong reduction of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations).
It is shown that Wen's effective theory correctly describes the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid at the edge of a system of non-interacting composite fermions. However, the weak residual interaction between composite fermions appears to be a relevant perturbation. The filling factor dependence of the Tomonaga-Luttinger parameter is estimated for interacting composite fermions in a microscopic approach and satisfactory agreement with experiment is achieved. It is suggested that the electron field operator may not have a simple representation in the effective one dimensional theory.
We have measured IV-curves of multiwalled carbon nanotubes using end contacts. At low voltages, the tunneling conductance obeys non-Ohmic power law, which is predicted both by the Luttinger liquid and the environment-quantum-fluctuation theories. However, at higher voltages we observe a crossover to Ohm's law with a Coulomb-blockade offset, which agrees with the environment-quantum-fluctuation theory, but cannot be explained by the Luttinger-liquid theory. From the high-voltage tunneling conductance we determine the transmission line parameters of the nanotubes.
Although the intrinsic conductance of an interacting one-dimensional system is renormalized by the electron-electron correlations, it has been known for some time that this renormalization is washed out by the presence of the (non-interacting) electrodes to which the wire is connected. Here, we study the transient conductance of such a wire: a finite voltage bias is suddenly applied across the wire and we measure the current before it has enough time to reach its stationary value. These calculations allow us to extract the Sharvin (contact) resistance of Luttinger and Fermi liquids. In particu…
In this paper we review some recent results concerning the physics of superconductor - Luttinger liquid proximity systems. We discuss both equilibrium (the pair amplitude, Josephson current, and the local density of states) and nonequilibrium (the subgap current) properties.
One-dimensional wires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, magnetic field, and strong electron-electron interactions are described by a spiral Luttinger liquid model. We develop a theory to investigate the tunneling density of states into a spiral Luttinger liquid under the proximity effect with superconductors. This approach provides a way to disentangle the delicate interplay between superconducting correlations and strong electron interactions. If the wire-superconductor boundary is dominated by Andreev reflection, we find that in the vicinity of the interface the zero-bias tunneling anomaly re…
We report on the observation of a helical Luttinger-liquid in the edge of InAs/GaSb quantum spin Hall insulator, which shows characteristic suppression of conductance at low temperature and low bias voltage. Moreover, the conductance shows power-law behavior as a function of temperature and bias voltage. The results underscore the strong electron-electron interaction effect in transport of InAs/GaSb edge states. Because of the fact that the Fermi velocity of the edge modes is controlled by gates, the Luttinger parameter can be fine tuned. Realization of a tunable Luttinger-liquid offers a one-…
Schrodinger cat states built from quantum superpositions of left or right Luttinger fermions located at different positions in a spinless Luttinger liquid are considered. Their decoherence rates are computed within the bosonization approach using as environments the quantum electromagnetic field or two or three dimensionnal acoustic phonon baths. Emphasis is put on the differences between the electromagnetic and acoustic environments.
Tunnelling density of states (DoS) in Luttinger liquid has a dip at zero energy, commonly known as the zero-bias anomaly (ZBA). In the presence of a magnetic field, in addition to the zero-bias anomaly, the DoS develops two peaks separated from the origin by the Zeeman energy. We find the shape of these peaks at arbitrary strength of the electron-electron interaction. The developed theory is applicable to various kinds of quantum wires, including carbon nanotubes.
We consider a four-terminal Aharonov-Bohm interference setup formed out of two edges of a quantum spin Hall insulator, supporting helical Luttinger liquids (HLLs). We show that the temperature and bias dependence of the interference oscillations are linked to the amount of spin flips in tunneling between two HLLs which is a unique signature of a HLL. We predict that spin dephasing depends on the electron-electron (e-e) interaction but differently from the charge dephasing due to distinct dominant tunneling excitations. In contrast, in a spinful Luttinger liquid with SU(2) invariance, uncharged…
Luttinger liquid behavior of one-dimensional correlated electron systems is characterized by power-law scaling of a variety of physical observables with exponents determined by a single interaction dependent parameter K. We suggest a setup to study Luttinger liquid behavior in quantum wires which allows to determine K from two independent measurements: resonant transport through a quantum dot embedded in the wire and the charge on the dot. Consistency of the two measured values of K for a single probe would provide strong experimental evidence for the Luttinger liquid paradigm.
We present experimental results on the tunneling into the edge of a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) obtained with a GaAs/AlGaAs cleaved edge overgrown structure in a strong perpendicular magnetic field. While the 2DEG exhibits typical fractional quantum Hall features of a very high mobility sample, we observe the onset of a non-linear current-voltage characteristic in the vicinity of nu=1. For filling factor nu<1 the system is consistent with a non-Fermi liquid behavior, such as a Luttinger liquid, whereas for nu>1 we observe an Ohmic tunneling resistance between the edge and a three dimen…
We study the gate voltage dependence of the linear conductance through a quantum dot coupled to one-dimensional leads. For interacting dot electrons but noninteracting leads Kondo physics implies broad plateau-like resonances. In the opposite case Luttinger liquid behavior leads to sharp resonances. In the presence of Kondo as well as Luttinger liquid physics and for experimentally relevant parameters, we find a line shape that resembles the one of the Kondo case.
In this paper, we present a description of Haldane's Luttinger liquid which parallels Laughlin's theory of the Fractional Quantum Hall (FQH) incompressible fluid, both exhibiting similar ground states as well as fractional excitations. These two non-Fermi liquids are instances of a generic structure for low-dimensional quantum liquids which we propose to dub Jastrow-Luttinger Fractional Liquids. An important feature of such liquids is the complete fractionalization of the parent particle. In particular, in both one and two dimensions spin-charge separation can be achieved and is indeed suggest…
We use Wilsons weak coupling ``momentum'' shell renormalization group method to show that two-particle interaction terms commonly neglected in bosonization of one-dimensional correlated electron systems with open boundaries are indeed irrelevant in the renormalization group sense. Our study provides a more solid ground for many investigations of Luttinger liquids with open boundaries.
Using its Conformal Field Theory description, the Luttinger liquid is coupled to the quantum electromagnetic field. We compute the decoherence properties of a superposition of two states obtained by creating the same elementary excitation at different places in the system.
We show that the non-linear dc transport in a Luttinger liquid with interaction of finite range in the presence of an impurity is governed by a sum rule which causes the charging energy to vanish.
We study a quantum phase transition which occurs in a system composed of two impurities (or quantum dots) each coupled to a different interacting (Luttinger-liquid) lead. While the impurities are coupled electrostatically, there is no tunneling between them. Using a mapping of this system onto a Kondo model, we show analytically that the system undergoes a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless quantum phase transition as function of the Luttinger liquid parameter in the leads and the dot-lead interaction. The phase with low values of the Luttinger-liquid parameter is characterized by an abrupt switc…
We investigate the rectification of an ac bias in Luttinger liquids in the presence of an asymmetric potential (the ratchet effect). We show that strong repulsive electron interaction enhances the ratchet current in comparison with Fermi liquid systems, and the I-V curve is strongly asymmetric in the low-voltage regime even for a weak asymmetric potential. At higher voltages the ratchet current exhibits an oscillatory voltage dependence.
Transport properties of metallic single-wall nanotubes are examined based on the Luttinger liquid theory. Focusing on a nanotube transistor setup, the linear conductance is computed from the Kubo formula using perturbation theory in the lead-tube tunnel conductances. For sufficiently long nanotubes and high temperature, phonon backscattering should lead to an anomalous temperature dependence of the resistivity.
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.
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.
We study how a Luttinger liquid of spinless particles in one dimension approaches thermal equilibrium. Full equilibration requires processes of backscattering of excitations which occur at energies of order of the bandwidth. Such processes are not accounted for by the Luttinger liquid theory. We treat the high-energy excitations as mobile impurities and derive an expression for the equilibration rate in terms of their spectrum. Our results apply at any interaction strength.
In this paper we study the differential capacitance of a single-level quantum dot attached to quantum wires in the Luttinger liquid phase, or to fractional quantum Hall edges, by both tunneling and interactions. We show that logarithmic or even power-law divergence of the capacitance at low temperatures may result in a substantial region of the parameter space (including the $ν=1/3$ filling). This behavior is a manifestation of generalized two channel Kondo physics, and can be used to extract Luttinger liquid parameters from thermodynamic measurements.
We suggest an experiment to study Luttinger liquid behavior in a one-dimensional nanostructure, avoiding the usual complications associated with transport measurements. The proposed setup consists of a quantum box, biased by a gate voltage, and side-coupled to a quantum wire by a point contact. Close to the degeneracy points of the Coulomb blockaded box, and in the presence of a magnetic field sufficiently strong to spin polarize the electrons, the setup can be described as a Luttinger liquid interacting with an effective Kondo impurity. Using exact nonperturbative techniques we predict that t…
We study transport properties in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid in the presence of two time-dependent point like weak impurities, taking into account finite-length effects. By employing analytical methods and performing a perturbation theory, we compute the backscattering pumping current (I_bs) in different regimes which can be established in relation to the oscillatory frequency of the impurities and to the frequency related to the length and the renormalized velocity (by the electron-electron interactions) of the charge density modes. We investigate the role played by the spatial position of th…
We report on the first direct observation of a transition from a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid to a Fermi liquid behavior in potassium intercalated mats of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT). Using high resolution photoemission spectroscopy an analysis of the spectral shape near the Fermi level reveals a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid power law scaling in the density of states for the pristine sample and for low dopant concentration. As soon as the doping is high enough to fill bands of the semiconducting tubes a distinct transition to a bundle of only metallic SWCNT with a scaling behavior of a norm…
We use bosonic field theories and the infinite system density matrix renormalization group (iDMRG) method to study infinite strips of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states starting from microscopic Hamiltonians. Finite-entanglement scaling allows us to accurately measure chiral central charge, edge mode exponents and momenta without finite-size errors. We analyze states in the first and second level of the standard hierarchy and compare our results to predictions of the chiral Luttinger liquid ($χ$LL) theory. The results confirm the universality of scaling exponents in chiral edges and demonstr…
The low-energy theory for multi-wall carbon nanotubes including the long-ranged Coulomb interactions, internal screening effects, and single-electron hopping between graphite shells is derived and analyzed by bosonization methods. Characteristic Luttinger liquid power laws are found for the tunneling density of states, with exponents approaching their Fermi liquid value only very slowly as the number of conducting shells increases. With minor modifications, the same conclusions apply to transport in ropes of single-wall nanotubes.
We calculate the tunneling density of states for a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid placed under a strong bias voltage. For the tunneling through a side-coupled point contact, one can observe the power law singularities in the tunneling density of states separately for the right- and left-movers despite the point-like tunnel contact. Deviations of the nonequilibrium tunneling exponents from the equilibrium case are discussed.
The "effective exponent theory", developed by Wang, Millis and Das Sarma in [Phys. Rev. B 69, 167101 (2004), Phys. Rev. B 64, 193307 (2001)], fails to calculate correctly the dynamic correlators of Coulomb Luttinger liquid. Main drawbacks are (i) cutting off the Coulomb potential by killing its long-range component, (ii) the absence of non-contradictory procedure to determine the 'scaling cutoff' and correlation functions for true Coulomb interaction.
We present experimental results on the tunneling into the edge of a two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) obtained with GaAs/AlGaAs cleaved edge overgrown structures. The electronic properties of the edge of these systems can be described by a one-dimensional chiral Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid when the filling factor of the 2DEG is very small. Here we focus on the region where the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid breaks down to form a standard Fermi liquid close to $ν=1$ and show that we recover a universal curve, which describes all existing data.
We form a highly simplified model of an atomic wire on a surface by the coupling of two one-dimensional chains, one with electron-electron interactions to represent the wire and and one with no electron-electron interactions to represent the surface. We use exact diagonalization techniques to calculate the eigenstates and response functions of our model, in order to determine both the nature of the coupling and to what extent the coupling affects the Luttinger liquid properties we would expect in a purely one-dimensional system. We find that while there are indeed Luttinger liquid indicators p…
There have been conflicting reports on the electronic properties of twin domain boundaries (DBs) in MoSe2 monolayer, including the quantum well states, charge density wave, and Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL). Here we employ low-temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy to reveal both the quantum confinement effect and signatures of TLL in the one-dimensional DBs. The data do not support the CDW at temperatures down to ~5 K.
We develop a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo (CTQMC) method for quantum impurities coupled to interacting quantum wires described by a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. The method is negative-sign free for any values of the Tomonaga-Luttinger parameter, which is rigorously proved, and thus, efficient low-temperature calculations are possible. Duality between electrons and bosons in one dimensional systems allows us to construct a simple formula for the CTQMC algorithm in these systems. We show that the CTQMC for Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids can be implemented with only minor modifications of previo…
As a model of two thermally excited flux liquids connected by a weak link, we study the effect of a single line defect on vortex filaments oriented parallel to the surface of a thin planar superconductor. When the applied field is tilted relative to the line defect, the physics is described by a nonhermitian Luttinger liquid of interacting quantum bosons in one spatial dimension with a point defect. We analyze this problem using a combination of analytic and numerical density matrix renormalization group methods, uncovering a delicate interplay between enhancement of pinning due to Luttinger l…
We study the quantum point contact between the topological superconductor and the helical Luttinger liquid. The effects of the electron-electron interactions in the helical Luttinger liquid on the low-energy physics of this system are analyzed by the renormalization group. Among the various couplings at the point contact which arise from the tunneling via the Majorana edge channel, the induced backscattering in the helical Luttinger liquid is the most relevant for repulsive interactions. Hence, at low temperatures, the helical Luttinger liquid is effectively cut into two separated half wires. …
We show that the criticism of our paper [Phys. Rev. B 65, 125109 (2002)] by Wang, Millis, and Das Sarma [cond-mat/0206203] is based on a trivial mathematical mistake they have committed.
Many quantum mechanical problems (such as dissipative phase fluctuations in metallic and superconducting nanocircuits, or impurity scattering in Luttinger liquids) involve a continuum of bosonic modes with a marginal spectral density diverging as the inverse of energy. We construct a Numerical Renormalization Group in this singular case, with a manageable violation of scale separation at high energy, capturing reliably the low energy physics. The method is demonstrated by a non-perturbative solution over several energy decades for the dynamical conductance of a Luttinger liquid with a single s…
