Affiliation:
1. University of British Columbia
2. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research
Abstract
Spectral functions are important quantities that contain a wealth of information about the quasiparticles of a system, and that can also be measured experimentally. For systems with electron-phonon coupling, good approximations for the spectral function are available only in the Migdal limit (at Fermi energies much larger than the typical phonon frequency, E_F\gg \OmegaEF≫Ω, requiring a large carrier concentration xx) and in the single polaron limit (at x=0x=0). Here we show that the region with x\ll 1x≪1(E_F<\OmegaEF<Ω) can also be reliably investigated with the Momentum Average (MA) variational approximation, which essentially describes the formation of a polaron above an inert Fermi sea. Specifically, we show that for the one-dimensional spinless Holstein model, the MA spectral functions compare favorably with those calculated using variationally exact density matrix renormalization group simulations (DMRG) evaluated directly in frequency-space, so long as x<0.1x<0.1 and the adiabaticity ratio \Omega/t>0.5Ω/t>0.5. Unlike in the Migdal limit, here 'polaronic physics’ emerges already at moderate couplings. The relevance of these results for a spinful low-xx metal is also discussed.
Funder
Canada First Research Excellence Fund
Max Planck Society
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
University of Tokyo
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy