Physical Review Letters
Fractional Charge and Correlation Exponents for Interacting Electrons in One Dimension
Eugene B. Kolomeisky, Joseph P. Straley
Abstract
Close to the transition between incommensurate conductor and commensurate insulator, charge transport in a system of one-dimensional interacting spin-1/2 fermions moving in a periodic potential is done by solitons (i.e., the few extra particles or holes) having a charge $Q$ which is a fraction of the elementary charge $e$. We show that $Q$ is directly related to the limiting value at commensuration of the exponent ${g}_{c}^{*}$ of the charge-charge correlation function: ${g}_{c}^{*}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}(Q/e{)}^{2}$. We give some simple rules for determining both charge and spin correlation exponents and point out their dependence on the parity of the order of the underlying umklapp scattering.