Resonant plasmon-phonon coupling and its role in magneto-thermoelectricity in bismuth

Using diagrammatic methods we derive an effective interaction between a low energy collective movement of fermionic liquid (acoustic plasmon) and acoustic phonon. We show that the coupling between the plasmon and the lattice has a very non-trivial, resonant structure. When real and imaginary parts of the acoustic plasmon's velocity are of the same order as the phonon's velocity, the resonance qualitatively changes the nature of phonon-drag. In the following we study how magneto-thermoelectric properties are affected. Our result suggests that the novel mechanism of energy transfer between electron liquid and crystal lattice can be behind the huge Nernst effect in bismuth.Comment: accepted in EPJB, to appear with a highligh

Spin-orbit coupling and proximity effects in metallic carbon nanotubes

We study spin-orbit coupling in metallic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) within the many-body Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) framework. For a well defined sub-class of metallic CNTs, that contains both achiral zig-zag as well as a sub-set of chiral tubes, an effective low energy field theory description is derived. We aim to describe system at finite dopings, but close to the charge neutrality point (commensurability). A new regime is identified where spin-orbit coupling leads to an inverted hierarchy of mini-gaps of bosonic modes. We then add a proximity coupling to a superconducting (SC) substrate and show that the only order parameter that is supported within the novel, spin-orbit induced phase is a topologically trivial s-SC.Comment: accepted in PhysRev

Phase diagram of hole doped two-leg Cu-O ladders

In the weak coupling limit, we establish the phase diagram of a two-leg ladder with a unit cell containing both Cu and O atoms, as a function of doping. We use bosonization and design a specific RG procedure to handle the additional degrees of freedom. Significant differences are found with the single orbital case; for purely repulsive interactions, a completely massless quantum critical region is obtained at intermediate carrier concentrations (well inside the bands) where the ground state consists of an incommensurate pattern of orbital currents plus a spin density wave (SDW) structure.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. B, Rapid Com

The two classes of low energy spectra in finite carbon nanotubes

Electrons in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess spin and orbital degrees of freedom. The latter is inherited from the bipartite graphene lattice with two inequivalent Dirac points. The electronic spectra obtained in several transport experiments on CNT quantum dots in parallel magnetic field often show an anticrossing of spectral lines assigned to the opposite Dirac valleys. So far this valley mixing has been attributed to the disorder, with impurity induced scattering. We show that this effect can arise also in ultraclean CNTs of the armchair class and it can be caused solely by the presence of the boundaries. In contrast, in CNTs of the zigzag class it does not occur. These two fundamentally different classes of spectra arise because of different symmetries of the low energy eigenstates of the two types of CNTs. The magnitude of the level splitting depends in a nonmonotonous way on the distance of the involved energy levels from the charge neutrality point.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, available Supplementary Materia

Magnetic phases in the one-dimensional Kondo chain on a metallic surface

We study the low-temperature properties of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 chain of magnetic impurities coupled to a (normal) metal environment by means of anisotropic Kondo exchange. In the case of easy-plane anisotropy, we obtain the phase diagram of this system at T=0. We show that the in-plane Kondo coupling destabilizes the Tomonaga-Luttinger phase of the spin-chain, and leads to two different phases: i) At strong Kondo coupling, the spins in the chain form Kondo singlets and become screened by the metallic environment, and ii) At weak and intermediate Kondo coupling, we find a novel dissipative phase characterized by diffusive gapless spin excitations. The two phases are separated by a quantum critical point of the Wilson-Fisher universality class with dynamical exponent $z\simeq2$.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. New version contains clarifications about the specific approximations. Accepted for publication in PR

Luttinger liquid theory of purple bronze Li0.9Mo6O17Li_{0.9}Mo_6O_{17} in the charge regime

Molybdenum purple bronze Li$_{0.9}$Mo$_{6}$O$_{17}$ is an exceptional material known to exhibit one dimensional (1D) properties for energies down to a few meV. This fact seems to be well established both in experiments and in band structure theory. We use the unusual, very 1-dimensional band dispersion obtained in \emph{ab-initio} DFT-LMTO band calculations as our starting point to study the physics emerging below 300meV. A dispersion perpendicular to the main dispersive direction is obtained and investigated in detail. Based on this, we derive an effective low energy theory within the Tomonaga Luttinger liquid (TLL) framework. We estimate the strength of the possible interactions and from this deduce the values of the TLL parameters for charge modes. Finally we investigate possible instabilities of TLL by deriving renormalization group (RG) equations which allow us to predict the size of potential gaps in the spectrum. While $2k_F$ instabilities strongly suppress each other, the $4k_F$ instabilities cooperate, which paves the way for a possible CDW at the lowest energies. The aim of this work is to understand the experimental findings, in particular the ones which are certainly lying within the 1D regime. We discuss the validity of our 1D approach and further perspectives for the lower energy phases.Comment: We wish to acknowledge financial support of MaNEP, SectionI

Collective excitations and low temperature transport properties of bismuth

We examine the influence of collective excitations on the transport properties (resistivity, magneto- optical conductivity) for semimetals, focusing on the case of bismuth. We show, using an RPA approximation, that the properties of the system are drastically affected by the presence of an acoustic plasmon mode, consequence of the presence of two types of carriers (electrons and holes) in this system. We found a crossover temperature T* separating two different regimes of transport. At high temperatures T > T* we show that Baber scattering explains quantitatively the DC resistivity experiments, while at low temperatures T < T* interactions of the carriers with this collective mode lead to a T^5 behavior of the resistivity. We examine other consequences of the presence of this mode, and in particular predict a two plasmon edge feature in the magneto-optical conductivity. We compare our results with the experimental findings on bismuth. We discuss the limitations and extensions of our results beyond the RPA approximation, and examine the case of other semimetals such as graphite or 1T-TiSe_2

Spin rotational symmetry breaking by orbital current patterns in two-leg ladders.

We investigate the physical consequences of orbital current patterns (OCP) in doped two-leg Cu-O Hubbard ladders. The internal symmetry of the pattern, in the case of the ladder structure, differs slightly from that suggested so far for cuprates. We focus on this OCP and look for measurable signatures of its existence. We compute the magnetic field produced by the OCP at each lattice site, and estimate its value in view of a possible experimental detection. Using a renormalization group (RG) analysis, we determine the changes that are caused by the SU(2) spin-rotational symmetry breaking which occurs when the OCP is present in the ground state phase diagram. The most signifcant one is an in-plane SDW gap opening in an otherwise critical phase, at intermediate dopings. We estimate the value of this gap, give an analytic expression for the correlation functions and examine some of the magnetic properties of this new phase which can be revealed in measurements. We compute the conductance in the presence of a single impurity, using an RG analysis. A discussion of the various sources of SU(2) symmetry breaking underscores the specificity of the OCP induced effects.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR