Optical and spectral properties of quantum domain walls in the generalized Wigner lattice

Abstract

We study the spectral properties of a system of electrons interacting through long-range Coulomb potential on a one-dimensional chain. When the interactions dominate over the electronic bandwidth, the charges arrange in an ordered configuration that minimizes the electrostatic energy, forming Hubbard's generalized Wigner lattice. In such strong coupling limit, the low energy excitations are quantum domain-walls that behave as fractionalized charges, and can be bound in excitonic pairs. Neglecting higher order excitations, the system properties are well described by an effective Hamiltonian in the subspace with one pair of domain-walls, which can be solved exactly. The optical conducitivity $\sigma(\omega)$ and the spectral function $A(k,\omega)$ can be calculated analytically, and reveal unique features of the unscreened Coulomb interactions that can be directly observed in experiments.