Possible formation of chiral polarons in graphene

Abstract

A theoretical investigation of the possible existence of chiral polaron formation in graphene is reported. We present an analytical method to calculate the ground-state of the electron–phonon system within the framework of the Lee–Low–Pines theory. On the basis of our model, the influence of electron–optical phonon interaction on the graphene electronic spectrum is investigated. We considered only the doubly degenerate optical phonon modes of E2g symmetry near the zone center Γ. It is analytically shown that the energy dispersions of both valence and conduction bands of the pristine graphene differ significantly from those obtained through the standard electron self-energy calculations arising from the electron–optical phonon interactions. In this paper, we also show for the first time that the degenerate band structure of the graphene promotes the chiral polaron formation. Furthermore, due to the k-dependent nature of the polaronic self-energy, in analogy with quantum chromodynamics, we also propose a running electron–phonon coupling constant as a function of energy.