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arXiv:cond-mat/0606387 · Physical Review B

Electron lifetime in Luttinger liquids

Karyn Le Hur

Published Oct 9, 2006• 42 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the decoherence of the electron wave packet in purely ballistic one-dimensional systems described through the Luttinger liquid (LL). At a finite temperature $T$ and long times $t$, we show that the electron Green's function for a fixed wave vector close to one Fermi point decays as $\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}t∕{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F})$ ---as opposed to the power-law behavior occurring at short times---and the emerging electron lifetime obeys ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\ensuremath{\propto}T$ for spinful as well as spinless electrons. For strong interactions, $(T{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F})\ensuremath{\ll}1$, reflecting that the electron is not a good Landau quasiparticle in LL's. We justify that fractionalization is the main source of electron decoherence for spinful as well as spinless electrons clarifying the peculiar electron mass renormalization close to the Fermi points. For spinless electrons and weak interactions, our intuition can be enriched through a diagrammatic approach or Fermi golden rule and through a Johnson-Nyquist noise picture. We stress that the electron lifetime (and the fractional quasiparticles) can be revealed from Aharonov-Bohm experiments or momentum resolved tunneling. We aim to compare the results with those of spin-incoherent and chiral LL's.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.74.165104

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We investigate the decoherence of the electron wave packet in purely ballistic one-dimensional systems described through the Luttinger liquid (LL). At a finite temperature TTT and long times ttt, we show that the electron Green's function for a fixed wave vector close to one Fermi point decays as exp(\ensuremath−t∕\ensuremathτF)\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}t∕{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F})exp(\ensuremath−t∕\ensuremathτF​) ---as opposed to the power-law behavior occurring at short times---and the emerging electron lifetime obeys \ensuremathτF\ensuremath−1\ensuremath∝T{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\ensuremath{\propto}T\ensuremathτF\ensuremath−1​\ensuremath∝T for spinful as well as spinless electrons. For strong interactions, (T\ensuremathτF)\ensuremath≪1(T{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F})\ensuremath{\ll}1(T\ensuremathτF​)\ensuremath≪1, reflecting that the electron is not a good Landau quasiparticle in LL's. We justify that fractionalization is the main source of electron decoherence for spinful as well as spinless electrons clarifying the peculiar electron mass renormalization close to the Fermi points. For spinless electrons and weak interactions, our intuition can be enriched through a diagrammatic approach or Fermi golden rule and through a Johnson-Nyquist noise picture. We stress that the electron lifetime (and the fractional quasiparticles) can be revealed from Aharonov-Bohm experiments or momentum resolved tunneling. We aim to compare the results with those of spin-incoherent and chiral LL's.
Using the appropriate fractionalization mechanism, we correctly derive the temperature (T) and interaction dependence of the electron lifetime ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F}$ in Luttinger liquids. For strong enough interactions, we report that $(T{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{F})\ensuremath{\propto}g,$ with $g\ensuremath{\ll}1$ being the standard Luttinger exponent; this reinforces that electrons are not good quasiparticles. We immediately emphasize that this is of importance for the detection of electronic interferences in ballistic one-dimensional rings and carbon nanotubes, inducing ``dephasing'' (strong reduction of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations).
We consider spinless electrons in two dimensions with the bare spectrum ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}}_{\mathbf{p}}$=vF{\mathit{v}}_{\mathit{F}}vF​(\ensuremath{\Vert}px{\mathit{p}}_{\mathit{x}}px​\ensuremath{\Vert}+\ensuremath{\Vert}py{\mathit{p}}_{\mathit{y}}py​\ensuremath{\Vert}). In momentum space, the interactions among electrons have a finite range q0{\mathit{q}}_{0}q0​, which is small compared to the Fermi momentum. A golden-rule calculation of the electron lifetime indictes a breakdown of Landau's Fermi-liquid theory in the model. At the one-loop level of perturbation theory, we show that the density wave and the superconducting instabilities cancel each other and there is no symmetry breaking. We solve the model via bosonization; the excitation spectrum is found to consist of gapless bosonic modes as in a one-dimensional Luttinger liquid.
The theoretical model of the short-range interacting Luttinger liquid predicts a power-law scaling of the density of states and the momentum distribution function around the Fermi surface, which can be readily tested through tunneling experiments. However, some physical systems have long-range interaction, most notably the Coulomb interaction, leading to significantly different behaviors from the short-range interacting system. In this paper, we revisit the tunneling theory for the one-dimensional electrons interacting via the long-range Coulomb force. We show that even though in a small dynamic range of temperature and bias voltage, the tunneling conductance may appear to have a power-law decay similar to short-range interacting systems, the effective exponent is scale-dependent and slowly increases with decreasing energy. This factor may lead to the sample-to-sample variation in the measured tunneling exponents. We also discuss the crossover to a free Fermi gas at high energy and the effect of the finite size. Our work demonstrates that experimental tunneling measurements in one-dimensional electron systems should be interpreted with great caution when the system is a Coulomb Luttinger liquid.
Theoretical studies suggest that an interacting one-dimensional electron system does not behave as a Fermi liquid. Instead, it is predicted to form a Luttinger liquid characterized e.g. by the absence of fermionic quasiparticles and interaction-dependent power-laws for transport quantities. So far, however, only a limited number of experiments have provided evidence for Luttinger liquid behavior. In this thesis we consider alternative methods to detect electronic correlations in one-dimensional electron systems based on our calculations of persistent currents and quantization of charge in ballistic single channel rings. The persistent current in an isolated impurity-free Luttinger liquid ring is found to be the same as for a system of non-interacting electrons. In contrast, a Luttinger liquid behavior is revealed if the ring is weakly connected to an electron reservoir and capacitively coupled to a gate electrode. The persistent current and the average charge in the ring are shown to change in a stepwise manner with the gate voltage at low temperatures. Both the step positions and the crossover temperatures are determined by the Luttinger liquid correlation parameter .alpha.(.alpha.c) which therefore can be measured. When a potential barrier is incorporated into the ring, the presence of strong interactions between electrons leads to a suppression of the persistent current and a change in its temperature dependence. A sharp maximum of the current is predicted to occur as a function of temperature. When two barriers are introduced into the ring, the possibility of resonant tunneling for the persistent current opens up. Two kinds of resonant behavior are discovered in the closed geometry: a current independent of the barrier transparency and a current analogous to the one with a single potential barrier. The persistent current in a ring containing a gas of fractionally charged excitations obeying fractional exclusion statistics is also studied. At finite temperatures, anomalous oscillations of the current are predicted as a manifestation of the statistics of the quasiparticles.
In this work we discuss extensions of the pioneering analysis by Dzyaloshinski ǐ and Larkin [Sov.Phys.JETP 38, 202 (1974)] of correlation functions for one-dimensional Fermi systems, focusing on the effects of quasiparticle relaxation enabled by a nonlinear dispersion.Throughout the work we employ both, the weakly interacting Fermi gas picture and nonlinear Luttinger liquid theory to describe attenuation of excitations and explore the fermion-boson duality between both approaches.Special attention is devoted to the role of spin-exchange processes, effects of interaction screening, and integrability.Thermalization rates for electron-and hole-like quasiparticles, as well as the decay rate of collective plasmon excitations and the momentum space mobility of spin excitations are calculated for various temperature regimes.The phenomenon of spin-charge drag is considered and the corresponding momentum transfer rate is determined.We further discuss how momentum relaxation due to several competing mechanisms, viz.triple electron collisions, electron-phonon scattering, and long-range inhomogeneities affect transport properties, and highlight energy transfer facilitated by plasmons from the perspective of the inhomogeneous Luttinger liquid model.Finally, we derive the full matrix of thermoelectric coefficients at the quantum critical point of the first conductance plateau transition, and address magnetoconductance in ballistic semiconductor nanowires with strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling.
We theoretically investigate transport in a spin-incoherent one-dimensional electron system, which may be realized in quantum wires at low-electron density and finite temperature. Both the pure and disordered cases are considered, both in finite wires and in the thermodynamic limit. The effect of Fermi-liquid leads attached to the finite-length system is also addressed. In the infinite system, we find a phase diagram identical to that obtained for a spinless Luttinger liquid, provided we make the identification g=2gcg=2{g}_{c}g=2gc​, where ggg is the interaction parameter in a spinless Luttinger liquid and gc{g}_{c}gc​ is the interaction parameter of the charge sector of a Luttinger-liquid theory for electrons with spin. For a finite-length wire attached to Fermi-liquid leads, the transport depends on the details of the disorder in the wire. A simple picture for the crossover from the spin-incoherent regime to the spin-coherent regime as the temperature is varied is also discussed, as well as some physical implications.