Resistivity of inhomogeneous quantum wires

TL;DR

This paper investigates how inhomogeneous electron-electron interactions influence electrical resistance in quantum wires, revealing that non-uniform interactions significantly increase resistance and induce a linear temperature dependence, even in strongly interacting regimes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that non-uniform interactions substantially affect resistance in quantum wires, extending previous models to include strong interactions using bosonization.

Findings

Non-uniform interactions increase wire resistance.

Resistivity shows linear temperature dependence at low T.

Results apply to both weakly and strongly interacting electrons.

Abstract

We study the effect of electron-electron interactions on the transport in an inhomogeneous quantum wire. We show that contrary to the well-known Luttinger liquid result, non-uniform interactions contribute substantially to the resistance of the wire. In the regime of weakly interacting electrons and moderately low temperatures we find a linear in T resistivity induced by the interactions. We then use the bosonization technique to generalize this result to the case of arbitrarily strong interactions.