The electronic systems in one dimension have features quite distinct from those in higher dimensions. The onedimensional Fermi surface consists of two discrete points, while in higher dimensions it is continuous. The low-energy particle-hole pairs’ spectrum, which arises from momentum and energy conservations for wave vector between zero and twice of Fermi wave vector does not exist in one dimension. In higher dimensions, this region of missing states is filled in. The Fourier transform of one-dimensional Coulomb potential diverges. This led to wide spread belief that one-dimensional interacting electronic systems should exhibit non-Fermi liquid (known as Luttinger liquid) behaviour. However, there is still no unambiguous evidence both for the real existence or non-existence of Luttinger liquid behaviour in a realistic quantum wire. This talk briefly reviews key aspects of Fermi liquid approach and Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid approach for a onedimensional system. In this paper, structure factor, pair distribution function and electron-electron scattering, which exhibit similarity between two approaches in low energy and momentum regime, is reviewed.
The electronic systems in one dimension have features quite distinct from those in higher dimensions. The onedimensional Fermi surface consists of two discrete points, while in higher dimensions it is continuous. The low-energy particle-hole pairs’ spectrum, which arises from momentum and energy conservations for wave vector between zero and twice of Fermi wave vector does not exist in one dimension. In higher dimensions, this region of missing states is filled in. The Fourier transform of one-dimensional Coulomb potential diverges. This led to wide spread belief that one-dimensional interacting electronic systems should exhibit non-Fermi liquid (known as Luttinger liquid) behaviour. However, there is still no unambiguous evidence both for the real existence or non-existence of Luttinger liquid behaviour in a realistic quantum wire. This talk briefly reviews key aspects of Fermi liquid approach and Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid approach for a onedimensional system. In this paper, structure factor, pair distribution function and electron-electron scattering, which exhibit similarity between two approaches in low energy and momentum regime, is reviewed.
Recent advances in single atom manipulation have made it possible to create "wires" in the form of atomic scale linear structures on a semiconductor surface. If such structures are to be used in future electronic devices, it will be necessary to know to what extent they behave as one-dimensional conductors, in which the presence of electron-electron interactions in the wire lead to properties quite different from those found in higher-dimensional systems. In particular, it would be useful to know if these structures retain any of the Luttinger liquid properties that are predicted for a pure one-dimensional metal. However, experimental studies of such structures have so far yielded unclear and contradictory results. We investigate this problem theoretically by creating a highly simplified model of a wire on a surface--a chain of atoms that includes electron-electron interactions to represent the wire, coupled to a similar chain that excludes electron-electron interactions to represent, albeit crudely, the surface. We present results for the eigenstates and spectral functions for such systems that suggest that many Luttinger liquid indicators are present. However the system as a whole retains some residual Fermi liquid characteristics, and therefore merges properties of both one and higher dimensions.
We review the progress in the theory of one-dimensional (ID) Fermi liquids which has occurred over the past decade. The usual Fermi liquid theory, based on a quasi-particle picture, breaks down in one dimension because of the Peierls divergence in the particle-hole bubble, producing anomalous dimensions of operators, and because of charge-spin separation. Both are related to the importance of scattering processes transferring finite momentum. A description of the low-energy properties of gapless 1D quantum systems can be based on the exactly solvable Luttinger model which incorporates these features, and whose correlation functions can be calculated. Special properties of the eigenvalue spectrum, parameterized by one renormalized velocity and one effective coupling constant per degree of freedom, fully describe the physics of this model. Other gapless 1D models share these properties in a low-energy subspace. The concept of a "Luttinger liquid" implies that their low-energy properties are described by an effective Luttinger model, and constitutes the universality class of these quantum systems. Once the mapping on the Luttinger model is achieved, one has an asymptotically exact solution of the 1D many-body problem. Lattice models identified as Luttinger liquids include the 1D Hubbard model off half-filling, and variants such as the t-J- or the extended Hubbard model. In addition, 1D electron-phonon systems or metals with impurities can be Luttinger liquids, as well as the edge states in the quantum Hall effect.
It is now possible to create wires consisting of a single chain of atoms on an insulating substrate, with possible applications in nanoscale circuitry. However, experimental data on such systems are currently rather limited and as such a thorough theoretical investigation of such systems is required. In particular, it is useful to know to what extent the behaviour of such wires is one-dimensional - purely one-dimensional systems display Luttinger liquid behaviour, as opposed to the Fermi liquid behaviour characteristic of higher dimensional systems. However, conventional techniques in theoretical surface science are unable to provide a description of electronic correlations at the level required for one dimensional systems. The existing literature on such atomic wire systems is first reviewed. A discussion of physics in one spatial dimension follows, with a thorough introduction to both the Luttinger liquid and the analytical solutions of the Luttinger model. These concepts are then applied to a simplified model of an atomic wire system - two coupled chains of atoms, on just one of which electron-electron interactions are included. The chain which includes interactions thus represents the wire, while the non-interacting chain represents, albeit incompletely, the influence of the insulating substrate upon which the wire is embedded. Evidence for Luttinger liquid behaviour would be found in the excitation spectra and correlation functions of the system. A Fortran 90 code was written to implement the above, and both a description of the code and numerical results are presented. The results from excitations and correlation functions of the system indicate that, within the limitations of the model, Luttinger liquid behaviour may well survive. It is possible to calculate for larger and more complicated systems by use of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) algorithm, which relies on keeping only those states of the many particle system needed to describe the ground state and the low-energy excitations. The underlying theory of DMRG is discussed and followed with presentation of preliminary results based on a Hubbard model Hamiltonian.
The properties of fermions in one dimension are markedly different from those in higher dimensions. In two or three dimensions, the many-body behaviour of fermions is described by the Fermi liquid model, whose most prominent result is that, instead of studying the behaviour of individual particles, it is better to describe the emergent phenomena of the whole system, known as quasiparticles. These are collective modes of excitations born out of particle-particle interactions, which resemble the constituent single particles, albeit with renormalised mass. In one dimension, however, the formation of such a correlated state is unfavourable and the quasiparticles are completely absent. Instead, 1D fermions are described by a model known as the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. Central to this model is the process of bosonisation, a mathematical technique which maps the excitation of fermions to bosonic modes of spin-density and charge-density waves. As a prerequisite of the bosonisation technique, the fermionic single-particle dispersion is approximated as a linear function. Consequently, the Luttinger liquid model is limited in its scope of applicability. Specifically, it is valid only in the vicinity of the Fermi points, where the excitation energy is low. Recent advancement in the theoretical field has expanded our understanding of 1D interacting fermions beyond the limit of linearity. The mobile-impurity model, proposed by L. Glazman and his co-authors, is a generalised model of 1D fermions which extends the scope of applicability of the Tomanaga-Luttinger model, accounting for the curvature of single-particle dispersion relations. It extends the region of validity of the tradition TLL theory from the neighbourhood of the Fermi points to a band which follows the single-particle dispersion. This thesis presents the results of an experimental work which provides direct evidence of non-linear behaviour predicted by the new model. It revolves around the measurement of the spectral function of electrons in surface-gate-defined quantum wires on a double-quantum-well, GaAs/AlGaAs device, and the comparison and fitting of the result to the non-linear theory. The spectral function is a theoretical concept frequently used in discussions on many-body problems. Its physical interpretation makes it closely related to experimental observables, such as the tunnelling current between the double quantum wells in this work. This thesis consists of three parts. Part one concerns the theories of the various many-body models and the experimental technique: Chapter 1 briefly introduces the concept of Fermi liquid, before focusing on a detailed account of the Luttinger-liquid model. The mobile-impurity model will be introduced in the framework of the Luttinger liquid model afterwards, followed by a review of experimental works reported in the literature on the study of TLL physics. In Chapter 2, the principles of the experimental tunnelling spectroscopy technique are described. The second part of the thesis details the structure of the test device used in the experiment and its fabrication. In particular, we will discuss the intricacies of the three-dimensional EBL fabrication process developed specifically for this project. The setup and running of the measurement circuit will also be discussed in this part of the thesis, in the context of a prerequisite sample characterisation measurement. In the final part of the work, data from the main experiment will be presented and analysed, in search for the electron-electron interaction effects which are predicted by the theoretical discussions in the first chapter.
For many years, the Luttinger liquid theory has served as a useful paradigm for the description of one-dimensional (1D) quantum fluids in the limit of low energies. This theory is based on a linearization of the dispersion relation of the particles constituting the fluid. Recent progress in understanding 1D quantum fluids beyond the low-energy limit is reviewed, where the nonlinearity of the dispersion relation becomes essential. The novel methods which have been developed to tackle such systems combine phenomenology built on the ideas of the Fermi-edge singularity and the Fermi-liquid theory, perturbation theory in the interaction strength, and new ways of treating finite-size properties of integrable models. These methods can be applied to a wide variety of 1D fluids, from 1D spin liquids to electrons in quantum wires to cold atoms confined by 1D traps. Existing results for various dynamic correlation functions are reviewed, in particular, the dynamic structure factor and the spectral function. Moreover, it is shown how a dispersion nonlinearity leads to finite particle lifetimes and its impact on the transport properties of 1D systems at finite temperatures is discussed. The conventional Luttinger liquid theory is a special limit of the new theory, and the relation between the two is explained.
Table of contents 1. Introduction 2. Non-Fermi-liquid features of Fermi liquids: 1D physics in higher dimensions 3. Dzyaloshinskii-Larkin solution of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model 4. Renormalization group for interacting fermions 5. Single impurity in a 1D system: scattering theory for interacting electrons 6. Bosonization solution 7. Transport in quantum wires 7.1 Conductivity and conductance 7.2 Dissipation in a contactless measurement 7.3 Conductance of a wire attached to reservoirs 7.4 Spin component of the conductance 7.5 Thermal conductance: Fabry-Perrot resonances of plasmons 8. Appendices