2011/01/31 by Tobias Meng, Mehul Dixit, Markus Garst +1 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Dimensionless quantity #Electron #Organic and Molecular Conductors Research #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Quantum tunnelling #Wigner crystal #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.83.125323
published as Phys. Rev. B 83, 125323 (2011) · 18 pages, 8 figures, minor changes, published version
openalex publication_date 2011/03/31 · arxiv created 2011/04/26 · arxiv updated 2011/04/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider electrons in a quantum wire interacting via a long-range Coulomb potential screened by a nearby gate. We focus on the quantum phase transition from a strictly one-dimensional to a quasi-one-dimensional electron liquid that is controlled by the dimensionless parameter nx0, where n is the electron density and x0 is the characteristic length of the transverse confining potential. If this transition occurs in the low-density limit, it can be understood as the deformation of the one-dimensional Wigner crystal to a zigzag arrangement of the electrons described by an Ising order parameter. The critical properties are governed by the charge degrees of freedom and the spin sector remains essentially decoupled. At large densities, on the other hand, the transition is triggered by the filling of a second one-dimensional subband of transverse quantization. Electrons at the bottom of the second subband interact strongly due to the diverging density of states and become impenetrable. We argue that this stabilizes the electron liquid as it suppresses pair-tunneling processes between the subbands that would otherwise lead to an instability. However, the impenetrable electrons in the second band are screened by the excitations of the first subband, so that the transition is identified as a Lifshitz transition of impenetrable polarons. We discuss the resulting phase diagram as a function of nx0.