Tunneling spectroscopy between one-dimensional helical conductors

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the tunneling spectroscopy of a system of two parallel one-dimensional helical conductors in the interacting, Luttinger liquid regime. We calculate the nonlinear differential conductance as a function of the voltage bias between the conductors and the orbital momentum shift induced on tunneling electrons by an orthogonal magnetic field. We show that the conductance map exhibits an interference pattern which is characteristic to the interacting helical liquid. This can be contrasted with the different interference pattern from tunneling between regular Luttinger liquids which is governed by the spin-charge separation of the elementary collective excitations.