Dimensional and doping stability of Peierls charge density waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of Peierls charge density waves in coupled one-dimensional chains, revealing how stacking geometry and doping influence the persistence and coexistence of CDW order.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of interchain coupling geometry and doping on CDW stability, highlighting complex phase behavior in minimal coupled chain models.

Findings

Parallel chains show bistability with coexisting states.

Skewed chains exhibit reentrant CDW order upon doping.

Stacking geometry critically affects CDW robustness.

Abstract

The Peierls instability, the spontaneous dimerization of a one-dimensional metallic chain at half filling, is a paradigmatic mechanism for charge-density-wave (CDW) formation. Here we test its robustness under finite doping and interchain hybridization in finite-thickness arrays of identical chains. We find that the stacking geometry plays a decisive role in stabilizing CDW order away from half filling. In particular, parallel-coupled chains exhibit a bistable regime where the normal and dimerized states coexist as local minima of the total energy, while skew-coupled chains display reentrant CDW order upon doping. Our results demonstrate that even minimal models of coupled atomic chains host rich phase diagrams controlled by doping, lattice rigidity, and interchain coupling geometry.