We theoretically investigate the tunneling spectroscopy of a system of two parallel one-dimensional helical conductors in the interacting, Luttinger liquid regime. We calculate the non-linear differential conductance as a function of the voltage bias between the conductors and the orbital momentum shift induced on tunneling electrons by an orthogonal magnetic field. We show that the conductance map exhibits an interference pattern which is characteristic to the interacting helical liquid. This can be contrasted with the different interference pattern from tunneling between regular Luttinger liquids which is governed by the spin-charge separation of the elementary collective excitations.
The presence of pronounced electronic correlations in one-dimensional systems strongly enhances Coulomb coupling and is expected to result in distinctive features in the Coulomb drag between them that are absent in the drag between two-dimensional systems. We review recent Fermi and Luttinger liquid theories of Coulomb drag between ballistic one-dimensional electron systems, and give a brief summary of the experimental work reported so far on one-dimensional drag. Both the Fermi liquid (FL) and the Luttinger liquid (LL) theory predict a maximum of the drag resistance R_D when the one-dimensional subbands of the two quantum wires are aligned and the Fermi wave vector k_F is small, and also an exponential decay of R_D with increasing inter-wire separation, both features confirmed by experimental observations. A crucial difference between the two theoretical models emerges in the temperature dependence of the drag effect. Whereas the FL theory predicts a linear temperature dependence, the LL theory promises a rich and varied dependence on temperature depending on the relative magnitudes of the energy and length scales of the systems. At higher temperatures, the drag should show a power-law dependence on temperature, $R_D ~ T^x$, experimentally confirmed in a narrow temperature range, where x is determined by the Luttinger liquid parameters. The spin degree of freedom plays an important role in the LL theory in predicting the features of the drag effect and is crucial for the interpretation of experimental results.
We theoretically obtain the phase diagram of localized magnetic impurity spins arranged in a one-dimensional chain on top of a one- or two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The interactions between the spins are mediated by the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) mechanism through the electron gas. Recent work predicts that such a system may intrinsically support topological superconductivity when a helical spin-density wave is formed in the spins, and superconductivity is induced in the electron gas. We analyze, using both analytical and numerical techniques, the conditions under which such a helical spin state is stable in a realistic situation in the presence of disorder. We show that it becomes unstable towards the formation of (anti) ferromagnetic domains if the disorder in the impurity spin positions $delta R$ becomes comparable with the Fermi wave length. We also examine the stability of the helical state against Gaussian potential disorder in the electronic system using a diagrammatic approach. Our results suggest that in order to stabilize the helical spin state, and thus the emergent topological superconductivity, a sufficiently strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling, giving rise to Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, is required.
We suggest a theory of internal coherent tunneling in the pseudogap region, when the applied voltage U is below the free electron gap 2Delta_0. We address quasi 1D systems, where the gap is originated by spontaneous lattice distortions of the Incommensurate Charge Density Wave (ICDW) type. Results can be adjusted also to quasi-1D superconductors. The instanton approach allows to calculate the interchain tunneling current both in single electron (amplitude solitons, i.e. spinons) and bi-electron (phase slips) channels. Transition rates are governed by a dissipative dynamics originated by emission of gapless phase excitations in the course of the instanton process. We find that the single-electron tunneling is allowed below the nominal gap 2Delta_0 down to the true pair-breaking threshold at 2W_as<2Delta, where W_as=2Delta/pi is the amplitude soliton energy. Most importantly, the bi-electronic tunneling stretches down to U=0 (in the 1D regime). In both cases, the threshold behavior is given by power laws J (U-U_c)^beta, where the exponent beta v_F/u is large as the ratio of the Fermi velocity v_F and the phase one u. In the 2D or 3D ordered phases, at temperature T<T_c, the one-electron tunneling current does not vanish at the threshold U_c anymore, but saturates above it at U-U_c T_c<<Delta. Also the bi-particle channel acquires a finite threshold U_c=W_ph T_c<<Delta at the energy W_ph of the 2pi phase soliton.
We present an extension of the tunneling theory for scanning tunneling microcopy (STM) to include different types of vibrational-electronic couplings responsible for inelastic contributions to the tunnel current in the strong-coupling limit. It allows for a better understanding of more complex scanning tunneling spectra of molecules on a metallic substrate in separating elastic and inelastic contributions. The starting point is the exact solution of the spectral functions for the electronic active local orbitals in the absence of the STM tip. This includes electron-phonon coupling in the coupled system comprising the molecule and the substrate to arbitrary order including the anti-adiabatic strong coupling regime as well as the Kondo effect on a free electron spin of the molecule. The tunneling current is derived in second order of the tunneling matrix element which is expanded in powers of the relevant vibrational displacements. We use the results of an ab-initio calculation for the single-particle electronic properties as an adapted material-specific input for a numerical renormalization group approach for accurately determining the electronic properties of a NTCDA molecule on Ag(111) as a challenging sample system for our theory. Our analysis shows that the mismatch between the ab-initio many-body calculation of the tunnel current in the absence of any electron-phonon coupling to the experiment scanning tunneling spectra can be resolved by including two mechanisms: (i) a strong unconventional Holstein term on the local substrate orbital leads to reduction of the Kondo temperature and (ii) a different electron-vibrational coupling to the tunneling matrix element is responsible for inelastic steps in the $dI/dV$ curve at finite frequencies.
Effects of non-magnetic disorder on the critical temperature T_c and on diamagnetism of quasi-one-dimensional superconductors are reported. The energy of Josephson-coupling between wires is considered to be random, which is typical for dirty organic superconductors. We show that this randomness destroys phase coherence between wires and that T_c vanishes discontinuously at a critical disorder-strength. The parallel and transverse components of the penetration-depth are evaluated. They diverge at different critical temperatures T_c^{(1)} and T_c, which correspond to pair-breaking and phase-coherence breaking respectively. The interplay between disorder and quantum phase fluctuations is shown to result in quantum critical behavior at T=0, which manifests itself as a superconducting-normal metal phase transition of first-order at a critical disorder strength.