Magnetic Impurity in a Luttinger Liquid : A

Exact results are reported for the low-temperature thermodynamics of a spin-1 2 magnetic impurity coupled to a 1D interacting electron system. The use of conformal eld theory techniques reveals that there are only two types of critical behaviors consistent with the symmetries of the problem: either a local Fermi liquid, or else a theory identical to that recently proposed by Furusaki and Nagaosa. We also show that forward electron scattering on the impurity produces the same critical behavior as the two-channel Kondo eeect for noninteracting electrons. The study of correlated electrons continues to be the focus of intense activity. A key issue, spurred by experimental studies of very narrow conduction channels, is the role of impurities in these systems. The one-dimensional case is particularly fascinating: As shown recently, even a single potential scatterer may drastically change the physics in the presence of electron-electron interactions (Luttinger liquid). 1 We here consider the case of a magnetic impurity coupled to a one-dimensional system of interacting electrons. 2 The electrons are modeled by a Tomonaga-Luttinger Hamiltonian with repulsive interaction (g > 0)