Electro-electron interactions and correlations in atomic-scale wires: Luttinger liquids and their spectral signatures

It is now possible to create wires consisting of a single chain of atoms on an insulating substrate, with possible applications in nanoscale circuitry. However, experimental data on such systems are currently rather limited and as such a thorough theoretical investigation of such systems is required. In particular, it is useful to know to what extent the behaviour of such wires is one-dimensional - purely one-dimensional systems display Luttinger liquid behaviour, as opposed to the Fermi liquid behaviour characteristic of higher dimensional systems. However, conventional techniques in theoretical surface science are unable to provide a description of electronic correlations at the level required for one dimensional systems. The existing literature on such atomic wire systems is first reviewed. A discussion of physics in one spatial dimension follows, with a thorough introduction to both the Luttinger liquid and the analytical solutions of the Luttinger model. These concepts are then applied to a simplified model of an atomic wire system - two coupled chains of atoms, on just one of which electron-electron interactions are included. The chain which includes interactions thus represents the wire, while the non-interacting chain represents, albeit incompletely, the influence of the insulating substrate upon which the wire is embedded. Evidence for Luttinger liquid behaviour would be found in the excitation spectra and correlation functions of the system. A Fortran 90 code was written to implement the above, and both a description of the code and numerical results are presented. The results from excitations and correlation functions of the system indicate that, within the limitations of the model, Luttinger liquid behaviour may well survive. It is possible to calculate for larger and more complicated systems by use of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) algorithm, which relies on keeping only those states of the many particle system needed to describe the ground state and the low-energy excitations. The underlying theory of DMRG is discussed and followed with presentation of preliminary results based on a Hubbard model Hamiltonian