Boundary effects on the local density of states of one-dimensional Mott insulators and charge density wave states

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how boundaries affect the local density of states in one-dimensional Mott insulators and charge density wave states, revealing signatures of pinning, spin-charge separation, and boundary-bound states relevant for STM experiments.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical framework for understanding boundary effects on LDOS in 1D correlated systems, including signatures of spin-charge separation and boundary-bound states.

Findings

Boundary LDOS shows a singularity at 2kF in CDW states.

Dispersing features above the spin gap indicate spin-charge separation.

Boundary magnetic fields induce mid-gap localized states.

Abstract

We determine the local density of states (LDOS) for spin-gapped one-dimensional charge density wave (CDW) states and Mott insulators in the presence of a hard-wall boundary. We calculate the boundary contribution to the single-particle Green function in the low-energy limit using field theory techniques and analyze it in terms of its Fourier transform in both time and space. The boundary LDOS in the CDW case exhibits a singularity at momentum 2kF, which is indicative of the pinning of the CDW order at the impurity. We further observe several dispersing features at frequencies above the spin gap, which provide a characteristic signature of spin-charge separation. This demonstrates that the boundary LDOS can be used to infer properties of the underlying bulk system. In presence of a boundary magnetic field mid-gap states localized at the boundary emerge. We investigate the signature of such bound states in the LDOS. We discuss implications of our results on STM experiments on quasi-1D systems such as two-leg ladder materials like Sr14Cu24O41. By exchanging the roles of charge and spin sectors, all our results directly carry over to the case of one-dimensional Mott insulators.