Narrow Results

Quantum steeplechase is the study of a Luttinger liquid (LL) in one dimension in the presence of a finite number of barriers and wells clustered around an origin. The powerful nonchiral bosonization technique (NCBT) is introduced to write down closed formulas for the two-point functions in the sense of the random phase approximation (RPA). Unlike g-ology-based methods that are tied to the translationally invariant, free particle basis, the NCBT explicitly makes use of the translationally noninvariant single particle wave functions. The present method, that provides the most singular part of the asymptotically exact Green function in a closed form, is in contrast to competing methods that require a combination of renormalization group and/or numerical methods in addition to the bosonization techniques.

The momentum distribution n_k of itinerant electrons in the one-dimensional Falicov–Kimball model is calculated for various ground-state phases. In particular, we examine the periodic phases with period two, three and four (that are ground-states for all Coulomb interactions) as well as the phase separated states (that are ground states for small Coulomb interactions). For all periodic phases examined the momentum distribution is a smooth function of k with no sign of any discontinuity or singular behavior at the Fermi surface k=k_F. An unusual behavior of n_k (a local maximum) is found at k=3k_F for electron concentrations outside half-filling. For the phase separated ground states the momentum distribution n_k exhibits discontinuity at k=k₀<k_F. This behavior is interpreted in terms of a Fermi liquid.

We review recent work on superlattices in monolayer and bilayer graphene. We highlight the role of the quasiparticle chirality in generating new Dirac fermion modes with tunable anisotropic velocities in one dimensional (1D) superlattices in both monolayer and bilayer graphene. We discuss the structure of the Landau levels and magnetotransport in such superlattices over a wide range of perpendicular (orbital) magnetic fields. In monolayer graphene, we show that an orbital magnetic field can reverse the anisotropy of the transport imposed by the superlattice potential, suggesting possible switching-type device applications. We also consider topological modes localized at a kink in an electric field applied perpendicular to bilayer graphene, and show how interactions convert these modes into a two-band Luttinger liquid with tunable Luttinger parameters. The band structures of electric field superlattices in bilayer graphene (with or without a magnetic field) are shown to arise naturally from a coupled array of such topological modes. We briefly review some bandstructure results for 2D superlattices. We conclude with a discussion of recent tunneling and transport experiments and point out open issues.

We describe the relationship between quantum Hall edge states and the one-dimensional Luttinger liquid model. The Luttinger liquid model originated from studies of one-dimensional Fermi systems, however, it results that many ideas inspired by such a model can find applications to phenomena occurring even in higher dimensions. Quantum Hall systems which essentially are correlated two-dimensional electronic systems in a strong perpendicular magnetic field have an edge. It turns out that the quantum Hall edge states can be described by a one-dimensional Luttinger model. In this work, we give a general background of the quantum Hall and Luttinger liquid physics and then point out the relationship between the quantum Hall edge states and its one-dimensional Luttinger liquid representation. Such a description is very useful given that the Luttinger liquid model has the property that it can be bosonized and solved. The fact that we can introduce a simpler model of noninteracting bosons, even if the quantum Hall edge states of electrons are interacting, allows one to calculate exactly various quantities of interest. One such quantity is the correlation function which, in the asymptotic limit, is predicted to have a power law form. The Luttinger liquid model also suggests that such a power law exponent should have a universal value. A large number of experiments have found the quantum Hall edge states to show behavior consistent with a Luttinger liquid description. However, while a power law dependence of the correlation function has been observed, the experimental values of the exponent appear not to be universal. This discrepancy might be due to various correlation effects between electrons that sometimes are not easy to incorporate within a standard Luttinger liquid model.

As helium-4 is cooled below 2.17 K it undergoes a phase transition to a fundamentally quantum mechanical state of matter known as a superfluid which supports flow without viscosity. This type of dissipationless transport can be observed by forcing helium to travel through a narrow constriction that the normal liquid could not penetrate. Recent experiments have highlighted the feasibility of fabricating smooth pores with nanometer radii, that approach the truly one-dimensional limit where it is believed that a system of bosons (like helium-4) may have startlingly different behavior than in three dimensions. The one-dimensional system is predicted to have a linear hydrodynamic description known as Luttinger liquid (LL) theory, where no type of long range order can be sustained. In the limit where the pore radius is small, LL theory would predict that helium inside the channel behaves as a sort of quasi-supersolid with all correlations decaying as power-law functions of distance at zero temperature. We have performed large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations of helium-4 inside nanopores of varying radii at low temperature with realistic helium–helium and helium-pore interactions. The results indicate that helium inside the nanopore forms concentric cylindrical shells surrounding a core that can be described via LL theory and provides insights into the exciting possibility of the experimental detection of this intriguing low-dimensional state of matter.

With particular reference to the role of the renormalization group (RG) approach and Ward identities (WI's), we start by recalling some old features of the one-dimensional Luttinger liquid as the prototype of non-Fermi-liquid behavior. Its dimensional crossover to the Landau normal Fermi liquid implies that a non-Fermi liquid, as, e.g., the normal phase of the cuprate high temperature superconductors, can be maintained in d>1 only in the presence of a sufficiently singular effective interaction among the charge carriers. This is the case when, nearby an instability, the interaction is mediated by critical fluctuations. We are then led to introduce the specific case of superconductivity in cuprates as an example of avoided quantum criticality. We will disentangle the fluctuations which act as mediators of singular electron–electron interaction, enlightening the possible order competing with superconductivity and a mechanism for the non-Fermi-liquid behavior of the metallic phase.

This paper is not meant to be a comprehensive review. Many important contributions will not be considered. We will also avoid using extensive technicalities and making full calculations for which we refer to the original papers and to the many good available reviews. We will here only follow one line of reasoning which guided our research activity in this field.

An overview is given of the limitations of Luttinger liquid theory in describing the real time equilibrium dynamics of critical one-dimensional systems with nonlinear dispersion relation. After exposing the singularities of perturbation theory in band curvature effects that break the Lorentz invariance of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model, the origin of high frequency oscillations in the long time behaviour of correlation functions is discussed. The notion that correlations decay exponentially at finite temperature is challenged by the effects of diffusion in the density–density correlation due to umklapp scattering in lattice models.

Effects due to the proximity of a superconductor has motivated a lot of research work in the last several decades both from theoretical and experimental point of view. In this review, we are going to describe the physics of systems containing normal metal-superconductor interface. Mainly we discuss transport properties through such hybrid structures. In particular, we describe the effects of electron–electron interaction on transport through such superconducting junction of multiple one-dimensional quantum wires. The latter can be described in terms of a non-Fermi liquid theory called Luttinger liquid. In this review, from the application point of view, we also demonstrate the possible scenarios for production of pure spin current and large tunneling magnetoresistance in such hybrid junctions and analyze the influence of electron–electron interaction on the stability of the production of pure spin current.

This article briefly reviews recent theoretical developments in quantum critical phenomena in one-dimensional (1D) integrable quantum gases of cold atoms. We present a discussion on quantum phase transitions, universal thermodynamics, scaling functions and correlations for a few prototypical exactly solved models, such as the Lieb–Liniger Bose gas, the spin-1 Bose gas with antiferromagnetic spin-spin interaction, the two-component interacting Fermi gas as well as spin-3/2 Fermi gases. We demonstrate that their corresponding Bethe ansatz solutions provide a precise way to understand quantum many-body physics, such as quantum criticality, Luttinger liquids (LLs), the Wilson ratio, Tan's Contact, etc. These theoretical developments give rise to a physical perspective using integrability for uncovering experimentally testable phenomena in systems of interacting bosonic and fermonic ultracold atoms confined to 1D.

We study a model of resonant point-contact tunneling of a single Luttinger-liquid lead, using the boundary state formulation. The model is described by a single chiral Fermion in one-dimensional space with one point contact interaction at the origin. It is the simplest model of this type. By folding the infinite line, we map the model onto a nonchiral model on the half infinite line and transcribe the point-contact tunneling interaction into a boundary interaction. The tunneling interaction yields a nonlocal effective action at the boundary. We explicitly construct the boundary state and evaluate the current correlation functions. The contact interaction is shown to act on the lower frequency modes more strongly.

Using the renormalization group we calculate the single particle Green's function G and the momentum occupation function for a quasiparticle in a two-dimensional Fermi Surface (FS) composed of four symmetric patches with both flat and curved arcs in -space. We show that G develops an anomalous dimension as a result of the vanishing of the quasiparticle weight at the FS. is a continuous function of with an infinite slope at FS for CU^*2/(1 - CU^*2) < 1. This result resembles a Luttinger liquid and indicates the breakdown of Fermi liquid theory in this regime.

One-dimensional strongly correlated electron systems coupled via transverse hopping and presence of interband interactions can converge to a Luttinger liquid state or diverge to an even more intricate behavior, as a Mott state. Explicit consideration of the renormalization group (RG) flow of the Fermi points in the Fermi surface, turns the classification of phase transitions more challenging. We reconsider the recent paper for the spinless case [E. Correa and A. Ferraz, Eur. Phys. J. B 87 (2014) 51], where RG flow equations are derived in a cutoff-dependent form up to two-loops order. We demonstrate that the cutoff-dependence can be removed by rewriting the RG flow equations in terms of the energy scale variable. In our paper, the RG flow equations assume a cutoff-independent form and leads to fixed points independent of cutoff choice. The consequence is the invariance under cutoff transformations, more suitable for classifying universality classes and phase transitions.

An overview is given of the limitations of Luttinger liquid theory in describing the real time equilibrium dynamics of critical one-dimensional systems with nonlinear dispersion relation. After exposing the singularities of perturbation theory in band curvature effects that break the Lorentz invariance of the Tomonaga–Luttinger model, the origin of high frequency oscillations in the long time behaviour of correlation functions is discussed. The notion that correlations decay exponentially at finite temperature is challenged by the effects of diffusion in the density–density correlation due to umklapp scattering in lattice models.

We describe the relationship between quantum Hall edge states and the one-dimensional Luttinger liquid model. The Luttinger liquid model originated from studies of one-dimensional Fermi systems, however, it results that many ideas inspired by such a model can find applications to phenomena occurring even in higher dimensions. Quantum Hall systems which essentially are correlated two-dimensional electronic systems in a strong perpendicular magnetic field have an edge. It turns out that the quantum Hall edge states can be described by a one-dimensional Luttinger model. In this work, we give a general background of the quantum Hall and Luttinger liquid physics and then point out the relationship between the quantum Hall edge states and its one-dimensional Luttinger liquid representation. Such a description is very useful given that the Luttinger liquid model has the property that it can be bosonized and solved. The fact that we can introduce a simpler model of noninteracting bosons, even if the quantum Hall edge states of electrons are interacting, allows one to calculate exactly various quantities of interest. One such quantity is the correlation function which, in the asymptotic limit, is predicted to have a power law form. The Luttinger liquid model also suggests that such a power law exponent should have a universal value. A large number of experiments have found the quantum Hall edge states to show behavior consistent with a Luttinger liquid description. However, while a power law dependence of the correlation function has been observed, the experimental values of the exponent appear not to be universal. This discrepancy might be due to various correlation effects between electrons that sometimes are not easy to incorporate within a standard Luttinger liquid model.

As helium-4 is cooled below 2.17 K it undergoes a phase transition to a fundamentally quantum mechanical state of matter known as a superfluid which supports flow without viscosity. This type of dissipationless transport can be observed by forcing helium to travel through a narrow constriction that the normal liquid could not penetrate. Recent experiments have highlighted the feasibility of fabricating smooth pores with nanometer radii, that approach the truly one-dimensional limit where it is believed that a system of bosons (like helium-4) may have startlingly different behavior than in three dimensions. The one-dimensional system is predicted to have a linear hydrodynamic description known as Luttinger liquid (LL) theory, where no type of long range order can be sustained. In the limit where the pore radius is small, LL theory would predict that helium inside the channel behaves as a sort of quasi-supersolid with all correlations decaying as power-law functions of distance at zero temperature. We have performed large scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations of helium-4 inside nanopores of varying radii at low temperature with realistic helium.helium and helium-pore interactions. The results indicate that helium inside the nanopore forms concentric cylindrical shells surrounding a core that can be described via LL theory and provides insights into the exciting possibility of the experimental detection of this intriguing low-dimensional state of matter.

With particular reference to the role of the renormalization group (RG) approach and Ward identities (WI's), we start by recalling some old features of the one-dimensional Luttinger liquid as the prototype of non-Fermi-liquid behavior. Its dimensional crossover to the Landau normal Fermi liquid implies that a non-Fermi liquid, as, e.g., the normal phase of the cuprate high temperature superconductors, can be maintained in d > 1 only in the presence of a sufficiently singular effective interaction among the charge carriers. This is the case when, nearby an instability, the interaction is mediated by critical fluctuations. We are then led to introduce the specific case of superconductivity in cuprates as an example of avoided quantum criticality. We will disentangle the fluctuations which act as mediators of singular electron–electron interaction, enlightening the possible order competing with superconductivity and a mechanism for the non-Fermi-liquid behavior of the metallic phase.

This paper is not meant to be a comprehensive review. Many important contributions will not be considered. We will also avoid using extensive technicalities and making full calculations for which we refer to the original papers and to the many good available reviews. We will here only follow one line of reasoning which guided our research activity in this field.