Abstract
Nondiagonal couplings to a bosonic bath completely change polaronic dynamics, from the usual diagonally coupled paradigm of smoothly varying properties. We study, using analytic and numerical methods, a model having both diagonal Holstein and nondiagonal Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) couplings. The critical coupling found previously in the pure SSH model, at which the effective mass diverges, now becomes a transition line in the coupling constant plane—the form of the line depends on the adiabaticity parameter. Detailed results are given for the quasiparticle and ground-state properties, over a wide range of couplings and adiabaticity ratios. The new paradigm involves a destabilization, at the transition line, of the simple Holstein polaron to one with a finite ground-state momentum, but with everywhere a continuously evolving band shape. No “self-trapping transition” exists in any of these models. The physics may be understood entirely in terms of competition between different hopping terms in a simple renormalized effective band theory. The possibility of further transitions is suggested by the results.
7 More- Received 10 September 2016
- Revised 24 November 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.035117
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