English

Coulomb Drag between Quantum Wires

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2009-10-31 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

We study Coulomb drag in a pair of parallel one-dimensional electron systems within the framework of the Tomanaga-Luttinger model. We find that Coulomb coupling has a much stronger effect on one dimensional wires than on two-dimensional layers: At zero temperature the trans-resistivity {\em diverges}, due to the formation of locked charge density waves. At temperature well above a cross-over temperature TT^* the trans-resistivity follows a power law ρTx\rho \propto T^x, where the interaction-strength dependent exponent xx is determined by the Luttinger Liquid parameter KcK_{c-} of the relative charge mode. At temperature below TT^* relative charge displacements are enabled by solitonic excitations, reflected by an exponential temperature dependence. The cross-over temperature TT^* depends sensitively on the wire width, inter-wire distance, Fermi wavelength and the effective Bohr radius. For wire distances dˉkF1\bar{d} \gg k_F^{-1} it is exponentially suppressed with T/EFexp[dˉkF/(1Kc)]T/E_F \sim \exp[ - \bar{d} k_F / (1-K_{c-}) ]. The behavior changes drastically if each of the two wires develop spin gaps. In this case we find that the trans-resistivity {\em vanishes} at zero temperature. We discuss our results in view of possible experimental realizations in GaAs-AlGaAs semiconductor structures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9912371,
  title  = {Coulomb Drag between Quantum Wires},
  author = {Rochus Klesse and Ady Stern},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9912371},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

16 pages, 3 figures, revTeX