2017/10/20 by Jean Paul Nery, Philip B. Allen, Gabriel Antonius +3 · 90 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Cumulant #Mathematics #Phonon #Physics #Polaron #Quantum mechanics #Quasiparticle #Semiconductor #Semiconductor materials and interfaces #Statistics #Superconductivity #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #Thermal Expansion and Ionic Conductivity #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.97.115145
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 97(11) (American Physical Society) · 21 pages, 19 figures
arxiv created 2017/10/20 · openalex created_date 2017/11/10 · openalex publication_date 2018/03/22 · arxiv updated 2018/03/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The electron-phonon interaction causes thermal and zero-point motion shifts of electron quasiparticle (QP) energies \ensuremathεk(T). Other consequences of interactions, visible in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments, are broadening of QP peaks and appearance of sidebands, contained in the electron spectral function A(k,\ensuremathω)=\ensuremath-\ensuremath\mathfrakImGR(k,\ensuremathω)/\ensuremathπ, where GR is the retarded Green's function. Electronic structure codes (e.g., using density-functional theory) are now available that compute the shifts and start to address broadening and sidebands. Here we consider MgO and LiF, and determine their nonadiabatic Migdal self-energy. The spectral function obtained from the Dyson equation makes errors in the weight and energy of the QP peak and the position and weight of the phonon-induced sidebands. Only one phonon satellite appears, with an unphysically large energy difference (larger than the highest phonon energy) with respect to the QP peak. By contrast, the spectral function from a cumulant treatment of the same self-energy is physically better, giving a quite accurate QP energy and several satellites approximately spaced by the LO phonon energy. In particular, the positions of the QP peak and first satellite agree closely with those found for the Fr"ohlich Hamiltonian by Mishchenko et al. [Phys. Rev. B 62, 6317 (2000)] using diagrammatic Monte Carlo. We provide a detailed comparison between the first-principles MgO and LiF results and those of the Fr"ohlich Hamiltonian. Such an analysis applies widely to materials with infrared(IR)-active phonons.