Phonon-induced many-body renormalization of graphene electronic properties

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical theory for how phonon-mediated electron-electron interactions significantly modify graphene's electronic band structure, matching experimental observations of spectral features and velocity renormalization.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical framework to quantify phonon-induced many-body effects on graphene's electronic properties, including spectral features and band velocity changes.

Findings

Predicted a kink at ~200 meV below Fermi level.

Estimated a 10-20% reduction in band velocity.

Successfully explained ARPES experimental spectra.

Abstract

We develop a theory for the electron-phonon interaction effects on the electronic properties of graphene. We analytically calculate the electron self-energy, spectral function and band velocity renormalization due to phonon-mediated electron-electron interaction. We find that phonon-mediated electron-electron coupling has a large effect on the graphene band structure renormalization, and our analytic theory successfully captures the essential features of the observed graphene electron spectra in the ARPES experiments, predicting a kink at $\sim 200\mathrm{meV}$ below the Fermi level and a reduction of the band velocity by $\sim 10-20%$ at the experimental doping level.