Issue Europhys. Lett. Volume 74, Number 4, May 2006 Page(s) 679 - 685 Section Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties DOI 10.1209/epl/i2006-10024-x Published online 12 April 2006

Europhys. Lett., 74 (4), pp. 679-685 (2006)
DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2006-10024-x

Spontaneous spin polarization in quantum wires

A. D. Klironomos, J. S. Meyer and K. A. Matveev

Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory - Argonne, IL 60439, USA

received 18 January 2006; accepted in final form 23 March 2006
published online 12 April 2006

Abstract
A number of recent experiments report spin polarization in quantum wires in the absence of magnetic fields. These observations are in apparent contradiction with the Lieb-Mattis theorem, which forbids spontaneous spin polarization in one dimension. We show that sufficiently strong interactions between electrons induce deviations from the strictly one-dimensional geometry and indeed give rise to a ferromagnetic ground state in a certain range of electron densities.

PACS
73.21.Hb - Quantum wires.
75.10.Pq - Spin chain models.

© EDP Sciences 2006

What is OpenURL?