Potential scattering in a Luttinger liquid: weak versus strong correlations

Abstract

The effect of a scalar impurity in Luttinger liquid is analysed. In the weak Coulomb correlation limit, the scenario presented by Oreg and Finkel'stein seems to be correct, where the problem resembles the physics of Kondo resonance. On the contrary, we propose an emergence of new physics when the correlation energy is larger than the Kondo scale, i.e. the resonance breaks, but still either the left or the right moving electron might get localised near the impurity site, giving rise to a local moment and hence a Curie-like impurity susceptibility in the system.