Electron-Plasmon scattering in chiral 1D systems with nonlinear dispersion

Abstract

We investigate systems of spinless one-dimensional chiral fermions realized, e.g., in the arms of electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometers, at high energies. Taking into account the curvature of the fermionic spectrum and a finite interaction range, we find a new scattering mechanism where high-energy electrons scatter off plasmons (density excitations). This leads to an exponential decay of the single-particle Green's function even at zero temperature with an energy-dependent rate. As a consequence of this electron-plasmon scattering channel, we observe the coherent excitation of a plasmon wave in the wake of a high-energy electron resulting in the buildup of a monochromatic sinusoidal density pattern.

5 pages, 3 figures; version as published