Metal-insulator transition in a sliding Luttinger liquid with line defects

Abstract

We investigate the effect of both strong and weak potential scattering caused by local impurities and extended (line) defects in an array of Luttinger liquid wires. We find that in both cases a finite range interwire interaction stabilizes the metallic state. Based on calculations of the scaling dimensions of one-particle scattering operators, we construct a phase diagram for low-temperature transport along the array.We find that unlike the local impurity case where only conducting and insulating states are realized (metal-insulator transition driven by interactions), the extended line defects may bring the system into a mixed state where conducting or insulating behavior can be observed depending on bare strength of the scatterer (metal-insulator transition driven by disorder).© 2017 American Physical Society