Transport of charge-density waves in the presence of disorder: Classical pinning vs quantum localization

TL;DR

This paper investigates how classical pinning and quantum localization affect charge-density wave transport in one dimension, revealing that quantum effects dominate at lower temperatures and have shorter localization lengths than classical pinning.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of the interplay between classical pinning and quantum localization in charge-density wave transport within the Luttinger model.

Findings

Quantum localization occurs at lower temperatures than classical pinning.

Quantum localization length is much smaller than pinning length.

Quantum effects dominate charge-density wave transport at low temperatures.

Abstract

We consider the interplay of the elastic pinning and the Anderson localization in the transport properties of a charge-density wave in one dimension, within the framework of the Luttinger model in the limit of strong repulsion. We address a conceptually important issue of which of the two disorder-induced phenomena limits the mobility more effectively. We argue that the interplay of the classical and quantum effects in transport of a very rigid charge-density wave is quite nontrivial: the quantum localization sets in at a temperature much smaller than the pinning temperature, whereas the quantum localization length is much smaller than the pinning length.