Nonlinear ac conductivity of interacting 1d electron systems

Bernd Rosenow, Thomas Nattermann

A. Komnik, Alexander O. Gogolin

Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Maura Sassetti, Bernhard Krämer

Bernd Rosenow, Thomas Nattermann

We consider low-energy charge transport in one-dimensional electron systems with short-range interactions under the influence of a random potential. Combining renormalization group and instanton methods, we calculate the nonlinear ac conductivity and discuss the crossover between the nonanalytic field dependence of the electric current at zero frequency and the linear ac conductivity at small electric fields and finite frequency.

Gianaurelio Cuniberti, Maura Sassetti, B. Krämer

Bernd Rosenow

We discuss a semiclassical calculation of low energy charge transport in one-dimensional (1D) insulators with a focus on Mott insulators, whose charge degrees of freedom are gapped due to the combination of short range interactions and a periodic lattice potential. Combining RG and instanton methods, we calculate the nonlinear AC conductivity and interpret the result in terms of multi-photon absorption. We compare the result of the semiclassical calculation for interacting systems to a perturbative, fully quantum mechanical calculation of multi-photon absorption in a 1D band insulator and find good agreement when the number of simultaneously absorbed photons is large.