Luttinger liquid and charge density wave phases in a spinless fermion wire on a semiconducting substrate

Anas Abdelwahab and Eric Jeckelmann
Phys. Rev. B 98, 235138 – Published 18 December 2018

Abstract

An interacting spinless fermion wire coupled to a three-dimensional (3D) semiconducting substrate is approximated by a narrow ladder model (NLM) with varying number of legs. We compute density distributions, gaps, charge density wave (CDW) order parameters, correlation functions, and the central charge using the density-matrix renormalization group method. Three ground-state phases are observed: a one-component Luttinger liquid, a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) CDW insulator, and a band insulator. We investigated the convergence of the NLM properties with increasing number of legs systematically and confirm that the NLM is a good approximation for the quasi-1D phases (Luttinger liquid and CDW) of the 3D wire-substrate model. The quantum phase transitions between these phases are investigated as function of the coupling between wire and substrate. The critical nearest-neighbor interaction increases with increasing coupling between wire and substrate and thus the substrate stabilizes the Luttinger liquid in the wire. Our study confirms that a Luttinger liquid or CDW insulator phase could occur in the low-energy properties of atomic wires deposited on semiconducting substrates.

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  • Received 5 October 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.235138

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Anas Abdelwahab and Eric Jeckelmann

  • Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Appelstr. 2, 30167 Hannover, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 98, Iss. 23 — 15 December 2018

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