# Long-range interactions in a one-dimensional electron system ∗

We study the unscreened Coulomb interaction in a one-dimensional electron system at low-energy. We use renormalization group methods and a GW approximation, in order to analyze the model. This yields both a strong wavefunction renormalization and a renormalization of the Fermi velocity. The significance of the effects depends on the filling level of the Fermi system. Despite the long-range character of the interaction, the system still falls into the Luttinger liquid universality class, since the effective couplings remain bounded at arbitrarily low energies.

* To be published in the Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Path-Integrals from peV to TeV, Florence, Italy, 25-29 August 1998

October 1998

The motivation for our interest in the study of one-dimensional electron systems is the recent experimental availability of single fullerene nanotubes . In one spatial dimension the Luttinger liquid concept replaces the Fermi liquid picture. This is usually treated assuming a local (short-range) interaction . For isolated fullerene tubules the bare interaction is not screened. The effects that the unscreened Coulomb interaction (CI) have on the properties of the one-dimensional system have been assessed recently .

In the bosonization approach for the Luttinger liquid behavior the CI is singular at small momentum transfer, hence a screening of the Coulomb potential by external charges is required . We use renormalization group (RG) methods to find the low-energy effective theory of the $`1/|x|`$ interaction. The main point that we want to address is the stability of the CI in the RG framework, and whether it falls into the Luttinger liquid universality class. We introduce the dynamical screening due to plasmons, through a GW approximation . The same approach has been also tested in the study of the crossover from Fermi liquid to Luttinger liquid behavior , as well as in the study of singular interactions in dimension $`1<d2`$ .

We consider a one-dimensional one-band model with an interaction hamiltonian

$$H_{int}=\frac{e^2}{8\pi }𝑑x𝑑x^{}\mathrm{\Psi }^+(x)\mathrm{\Psi }(x)\frac{1}{|xx^{}|}\mathrm{\Psi }^+(x^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(x^{}),$$
(1)   
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ is the electron annihilation field operator. The problem of having a nonlocal operator in (1) (RG methods usually deal with local operators), can be circumvented by introducing a local auxiliary field $`\varphi (x)`$ that propagates the CI .

Focusing on the scaling behavior of the irreducible functions as the bandwidth cutoff $`E_c`$ is sent towards the Fermi level, $`E_c0`$, yields the 1-loop electron self-energy 

$`i\mathrm{\Sigma }(k,0)i{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4\pi ^2}}k\mathrm{log}E_c.`$ (2)   
However, quantum corrections strongly modify the propagator of the $`\varphi (x)`$ field. Taking into account the particle-hole processes contributing to the 1-loop self-energy of $`\varphi (x)`$, leads to<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1The ultraviolet cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ for excitations along the $`y`$ and $`z`$ transverse directions is needed, when projecting the three-dimensional interaction down to the one-dimensional system.

$$i\varphi (k,\omega )\varphi (k,\omega )=1/\left(\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{log}(|k|/\mathrm{\Lambda })}+\frac{e^2}{\pi }\frac{v_Fk^2}{v_F^2k^2\omega _k^2}\right).$$
(3)   
We use the scalar propagator (3) in the renormalization of the Fermi velocity and the electron wavefunction. This corresponds to taking the leading order in a $`1/N`$ expansion, in a model with $`N`$ different electron flavors. In our case, such an approximation to the self-energy is also justified since it takes into account, at each level in perturbation theory, the most singular contribution at small momentum transfer of the interaction.

This approximation yields for the renormalized electron propagator 

$`G^1(k,\omega _k)`$ $``$ $`Z_\mathrm{\Psi }^1(\omega _kv_Fk)Z_\mathrm{\Psi }^1(\omega _kv_Fk){\displaystyle ^{E_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp}{|p|}}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{1+f(p)}{2\sqrt{f(p)}}}\right)`$ (4)   
$`Z_\mathrm{\Psi }^1k{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle ^{E_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp}{|p|}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{f(p)}4/3+1/\left(3f(p)^{3/2}\right)}{\left(1f(p)\right)^2}},`$   
where $`f(p)1e^2\mathrm{log}(|p|/\mathrm{\Lambda })/(2\pi ^2v_F)`$ and $`Z_\mathrm{\Psi }^{1/2}`$ represents the scale of the bare electron field compared to that of the cutoff-independent electron field

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{bare}(E_c)=Z_\mathrm{\Psi }^{1/2}\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(5)   
The RG flow equations for the cutoff-dependent effective parameters, corresponding to the behavior of the quantum theory as $`E_c0`$, can be derived from (4)

$`E_c{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dE_c}}\mathrm{log}Z_\mathrm{\Psi }(E_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+f(E_c)}{2\sqrt{f(E_c)}}}1`$ (6)   
$`E_c{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dE_c}}v_F(E_c)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{f(E_c)}4/3+1/\left(3f(E_c)^{3/2}\right)}{\left(1f(E_c)\right)^2}}.`$ (7)   
One can check that Eq. (7) leads to an enhancement of the Fermi velocity at low energies, which goes in the direction of screening the effective interaction. Eq. (6) also corresponds to a sensible effect, as the leading behavior is that of suppressing the electron quasiparticle weight. The fast wavefunction renormalization we found , seems to imply a non-algebraic behavior of the electron propagator with regard to the frequency and momentum dependence, what is reminiscent of similar features found for some correlation functions in the bosonization approach .

At the level of the $`1/N`$ approximation we consider, the three-point vertex only gets the cutoff dependence given by the wavefunction renormalization in (6). This means that the electron charge is not renormalized at low energies in our local field theory framework. The behavior of the effective interaction is, therefore, completely encoded in Eq. (7).

The RG equation for the effective coupling constant $`ge^2/(4\pi ^2v_F)`$ is

$$E_c\frac{d}{dE_c}g(E_c)=\frac{1}{4(\mathrm{log}E_c)^2}\left(\sqrt{f(E_c)}\frac{4}{3}+\frac{1}{3f(E_c)^{3/2}}\right).$$
(8)   
This equation actually controls all the physical properties of the electron system. In our model the effective coupling constant $`g`$ displays marginal behavior. However, the logarithmic corrections to scaling in (8) reduce the flow in the infrared. The flow of $`g(E_c)`$ given by (8) is arrested close to some fixed-point value, after which it becomes insensitive to further scaling in the infrared.

We conclude that the CI remains long-ranged in the low-energy effective theory, while the effective coupling has a stable flow in the infrared. This means that the one-dimensional system falls into the Luttinger liquid universality class. This does not support any phase transition concerning the strength of the interaction. However, a reduction of the effective couplings, depending on the band structure, could be relevant for the phenomenology of chiral one-dimensional electron systems and their application to fullerene nanotubes .

Notice that a significant renormalization of $`v_F`$ may be present in small chains, contributing to explain the insulator-metal transition by the effect of the Coulomb interaction observed in the exact diagonalization of finite rings . The study of small finite-size systems  also indicates a reduction of the electron correlations similar to our findings in the RG framework. A generalization of our research, to include the case of different values of the running parameter $`v_F`$ for the (fermion) quasi-particles and the (scalar) plasmon sector is currently under investigation.