Luttinger liquids: the basic concepts

Michele Fabrizio

Norio Kawakami

In 1950, Tomonaga published a pioneering paper on collective motion of interacting fermions in one spatial dimension, which now establishes the basic concept of one-dimensional quantum critical phenomena, the so-called Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. We briefly discuss fundamental properties of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid in comparison with the Fermi liquid. We then explain how (1+1) dimensional conformal field theory can be used to describe universal properties of the Luttinger liquid. Some examples of recent experimental observations are also addressed.

Д. А. Багрец, I. V. Gornyi, A. D. Mirlin +1 more

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 a 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 a 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 a 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 on the order of the rate of elastic scattering off disorder, independent of the interaction constant and temperature.

Igor A. Zaliznyak

Claudius Gros, Roser Valentí

We study a variational formulation of the Luttinger-liquid concept in two dimensions. We show that a Luttinger-liquid wavefunction with an algebraic singularity at the Fermiedge is given by a Jastrow-Gutzwiller type wavefunction, which we evaluate by variational Monte Carlo for lattices with up to 38 × 38 = 1444 sites. We therefore find that, from a variational point of view, the concept of a Luttinger liquid is well defined even in 2D. We also find that the Luttinger liquid state is energetically favoured by the projected kinetic energy in the context of the 2D t-J model. We study and find coexistence of d-wave superconductivity and Luttinger-liquid behaviour in two-dimensional projected wavefunctions. We then argue that generally, any two-dimensional d-wave superconductor should be unstable against Luttinger-liquid type correlations along the (quasi-1D) nodes of the d-wave order parameter, at temperatures small compared to the gap.