Density of Neutral Solitons in Weakly Disordered Peierls Chains
Abstract
We study the effects of weak off-diagonal disorder on Peierls systems with a doubly degenerate ground state. We show that for these systems disorder in the electron hopping amplitudes induces a finite density of solitons in the minimal-energy lattice configuration of a single chain. These disorder-induced dimerization kinks are neutral and have spin 1/2. Using a continuum model for the Peierls chain and treating the lattice classically, we analytically calculate the average free energy and density of kinks. We compare these results to numerical calculations for a discrete model and discuss the implications of the kinks for the optical and magnetic properties of the conjugated polymer trans-polyacetylene.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9711107,
title = {Density of Neutral Solitons in Weakly Disordered Peierls Chains},
author = {M. V. Mostovoy and M. T. Figge and J. Knoester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9711107},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
28 pages, revtex, 5 Postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B