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Title: Coulomb disorder in periodic systems: Effect of unscreened charged impurities

Journal Article · · Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVB.73.0· OSTI ID:20787840
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Laboratoire de physique theorique de l'Ecole Normale Superieure, CNRS UMR8549, 24, Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05 (France)
  2. Laboratoire de physique theorique et modeles statistiques, CNRS UMR8626, Batiment 100, Universite Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay Cedex (France)
  3. Laboratoire de physique theorique de la matiere condensee, CNRS UMR7600, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, 4, Place Jussieu 75252 Paris Cedex 05 (France)
  4. Universite de Geneve, DPMC, 24 Quai Ernest Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneva 4 (Switzerland)

We study the effect of unscreened charged impurities on periodic systems. We show that the long-wavelength component of the disorder becomes long ranged and dominates static correlation functions. On the other hand, because of the statistical tilt symmetry, dynamical properties such as pinning remain unaffected. As a concrete example, we focus on the effect of Coulombian disorder generated by charged impurities on three-dimensional charge density waves with nonlocal elasticity. We calculate the x-ray intensity and find that it is identical to the one produced by thermal fluctuations in a disorder-free smectic-A phase. We discuss the consequences of these results for experiments.

OSTI ID:
20787840
Journal Information:
Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, Vol. 73, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.73.035112; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1098-0121
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English