https://doi.org/10.1007/s100510070070
On the Coulomb interaction in chiral-invariant one-dimensional electron systems
1
Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, INFN, PO Box 13, 00044 Frascati, Italy
2
Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Serrano 123, 28006 Madrid, Spain
Received:
28
December
1999
Revised:
5
May
2000
Published online: 15 November 2000
We consider a one-dimensional electron system, suitable for the description of the electronic correlations in a metallic carbon nanotube. Renormalization group methods are used to study the low-energy behavior of the unscreened Coulomb interaction between currents of well-defined chirality. In the limit of a very large number n of subbands we find a strong renormalization of the Fermi velocity, reminiscent of a similar phenomenon in the graphite sheet. For small n or sufficiently low energy, the Luttinger liquid behavior takes over, with a strong wavefunction renormalization leading to a vanishing quasiparticle weight. Our approach is appropriate to study the crossover from two-dimensional to one-dimensional behavior in carbon nanotubes of large radius.
PACS: 71.27.+a – Strongly correlated electron systems; heavy fermions / 73.20.Dx – Electron states in low-dimensional structures (superlattices, quantum well structures and multilayers) / 05.30.Fk – Fermion systems and electron gas
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2000
