Impurity-induced stabilization of Luttinger liquid in quasi-one-dimensional conductors
S. N. Artemenko
Institute for Radioengineering and Electronics RAS, 125009 Moscow, Russia
PACS: 71.10.-w, 71.27.+a, 71.45.Lr
Abstract
It is shown theoretically that the Luttinger liquid can
exist in quasi-one-dimensional conductors in the presence of
impurities in a form of a collection of bounded Luttinger liquids.
The conclusion is based upon the observation by Kane and Fisher
that a local impurity potential in Luttinger liquid acts, at low
energies, as an infinite barrier. This leads to a discrete
spectrum of collective charge and spin density fluctuations, so
that interchain hopping can be considered as a small parameter at
temperatures below the minimum excitation energy of the collective
modes. The results are compared with recent experimental
observation of a Luttinger-liquid-like behavior in thin NbSe3
and TaS3 wires.