Dimensionality effects on the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model

Abstract

A low order diagrammatic study of the dimension-dependent Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model Hamiltonian in the weak electron–phonon coupling regime is presented. Exact computation of both the charge carrier effective mass and the electron spectral function shows that electrons are good quasi-particles in the anti-adiabatic limit but new features emerge in the adiabatic and intermediate regime, where the phonons and the electrons compare on the energy scale. Here we find: (i) a sizeable mass enhancement over the bare band value, (ii) the appearance of many transition peaks in the band bottom spectral function together with a growing loss of spectral weight at larger e–ph couplings. The onset of a polaronic state is favoured in two-dimensions.