Charge Fractionalization in Non-Chiral Luttinger Systems

View/ Open
Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aop.2008.04.006Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Le Hur, Karyn, Bertrand I. Halperin, and Amir Yacoby. 2008. Charge fractionalization in non-chiral Luttinger liquid systems. Annals of Physics 323(12): 3037-3058.Abstract
One-dimensional metals, such as quantum wires or carbon nanotubes, can carry charge in arbitrary units, smaller or larger than a single electron charge. However, according to Luttinger theory, which describes the low-energy excitations of such systems, when a single electron is injected by tunneling into the middle of such a wire, it will tend to break up into separate charge pulses, moving in opposite directions, which carry definite fractions f and (1-f) of the electron charge, determined by a parameter g that measures the strength of charge interactions in the wire. (The injected electron will also produce a spin excitation, which will travel at a different velocity than the charge excitations.) Observing charge fractionalization physics in an experiment is a challenge in those (nonchiral) low-dimensional systems which are adiabatically coupled to Fermi liquid leads. We theoretically discuss a first important step towards the observation of charge fractionalization in quantum wires based on momentum-resolved tunneling and multi-terminal geometries, and explain the recent experimental results of Steinberg et al. [H. Steinberg, G. Barak, A. Yacoby, L.N. Pfeiffer, K.W. West, B.I. Halperin, K. Le Hur, Nature Physics 4 (2008) 116].Other Sources
http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.0744v2Terms of Use
This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAACitable link to this page
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2897187
Collections
- FAS Scholarly Articles [18145]
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)