2008/04/30 by Dmitry Bagrets, D. A. Bagrets, I. V. Gornyi +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1134/s1063782608080204
published as Semiconductors 42, 994 (2008) · 13 pages, 2 figures; contribution to a special issue of "Semiconductors" dedicated to V.I. Perel
arxiv created 2008/04/30 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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.