Phase diagram of a quantum Coulomb wire

Abstract

We report the quantum phase diagram of a one-dimensional Coulomb wire obtained using the path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) method. The exact knowledge of the nodal points of this system permits us to find the energy in an exact way, solving the sign problem which spoils fermionic calculations in higher dimensions. The results obtained allow for the determination of the stability domain, in terms of density and temperature, of the one-dimensional Wigner crystal. At low temperatures, the quantum wire reaches the quantum-degenerate regime, which is also described by the diffusion Monte Carlo method. Increasing the temperature the system transforms to a classical Boltzmann gas which we simulate using classical Monte Carlo. At large enough density, we identify a one-dimensional ideal Fermi gas which remains quantum up to higher temperatures than in two- and three-dimensional electron gases. The obtained phase diagram as well as the energetic and structural properties of this system are relevant to experiments with electrons in quantum wires and to Coulomb ions in one-dimensional confinement.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Probing spin-charge separation in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid
• Structural phase transitions in low-dimensional ion crystals
• 1D-1D Coulomb Drag Signature of a Luttinger Liquid
• Quantum melting of a crystal of dipolar bosons
• Super-Tonks-Girardeau regime in trapped one-dimensional dipolar gases
• Ground state properties of the one-dimensional electron liquid
• Correlation effects in quasi one dimensional electron wires
• Short-range correlations and spin-mode velocities in ultrathin one-dimensional conductors

Cited by in corpus (4)

• One-dimensional few-electron effective Wigner crystal in quantum and classical regimes
• Ground states of long-range interacting fermions in one spatial dimension
• One Dimensional 1H, 2H and 3H
• The inverse-square interaction phase diagram: unitarity in the bosonic ground state