Local impurity in a multichannel Luttinger liquid

Abstract

We investigate the stability of conducting and insulating phases in multichannel Luttinger liquids with respect to embedding a single impurity. We devise a general approach for finding critical exponents of the conductance in the limits of both weak and strong scattering. In contrast to the one-channel Luttinger liquid, the system state in certain parametric regions depends on the scattering strength which results in the emergence of a bistability. Focusing on the two-channel liquid, the method developed here enables us to provide a generic analysis of phase boundaries governed by the most relevant (i.e., not necessarily single-particle) scattering mechanism. The present approach is applicable to channels of different nature as in fermion-boson mixtures, or to identical ones as on the opposite edges of a topological insulator. We show that interaction per se cannot provide protection in the particular case of topological insulators realized in narrow Hall bars.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.205122
Divisions: College of Engineering & Physical Sciences > Systems analytics research institute (SARI)
Publication ISSN: 1550-235X
Last Modified: 14 Feb 2024 08:05
Date Deposited: 23 May 2017 14:35
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2017-05-15
Accepted Date: 2017-04-25
Authors: Kagalovsky, V.
Lerner, Igor V.
Yurkevich, Igor V. (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-1447-8913)

Download

[img]

Version: Accepted Version

| Preview

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record