Optical properties of graphene: the Fermi liquid approach

TL;DR

This paper uses a Fermi liquid approach to analyze the optical properties of graphene, showing correlation effects are negligible and explaining experimental observations of universal optical conductivity.

Contribution

It introduces a pseudospin precession formalism to include correlation effects in the optical properties of graphene within a Fermi liquid framework.

Findings

Correlation effects are negligible in the optical properties of graphene.

The approach explains the universal optical conductivity observed experimentally.

The formalism provides a natural way to include correlation effects in 2D Dirac fermions.

Abstract

Optical properties of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions are considered by the formalism of pseudospin precession equations which provides an easy and natural semiphenomenological way to include correlation effects. It is shown that the latter are negligible, with the only assumption that the system under consideration is normal Fermi liquid. This result probably explains recent experimental data on the universal optical conductivity of graphene (Nair R. R. et al, Science 320 (2008) 1308).