Density-density correlation function of strongly inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids

Abstract

In this work, we show in pedagogical detail that the most singular contributions to the slow part of the asymptotic density-density correlation function of Luttinger liquids with fermions interacting mutually with only short-range forward scattering and also with localised scalar static impurities (where backward scattering takes place) has a compact analytical expression in terms of simple functions that have second order poles and involve only the scale-independent bare transmission and reflection coefficients. This proof uses conventional fermionic perturbation theory resummed to all orders, together with the idea that for such systems, the (connected) moments of the density operator all vanish beyond the second order—the odd ones vanish identically and the higher order even moments are less singular than the second order moment which is the only one included. This important result is the crucial input to the recently introduced ‘Non-Chiral Bosonization Technique’ (NCBT) to study such systems. The results of NCBT cannot be easily compared with the results obtained using conventional bosonization as the former only extracts the most singular parts of the correlation functions albeit for arbitrary impurity strengths and mutual interactions. The latter, ambitiously attempts to study all the parts of the asymptotic correlation functions and is thereby unable to find simple analytical expressions and is forced to operate in the vicinity of the homogeneous system or the half line (the opposite extreme). For a fully homogeneous system or its antithesis viz. the half-line, all the higher order connected moments of the density vanish identically which means the results of chiral bosonization and NCBT ought to be the same and indeed they are.