A study of low-dimensional inhomogeneous systems

While the properties of homogeneous one-dimensional systems, even with disorder, are relatively well-understood, very little is known about the properties of strongly interacting inhomogeneous systems. Their high-energy physics is determined by the underlying chemistry which, in the atomic scale, introduces Coulomb correlations and local potentials. On the other hand, at large length scales, the physics has to be described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) model. In order to establish a connection between the low-energy TLL and the quasi-one-dimensional systems synthesized in the laboratory, we investigate the density-density correlation function in inhomogeneous one-dimensional systems in the asymptotic region. To investigate homogeneous as well as inhomogeneous systems, we use the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. We present results for ground state properties, such as the density-density correlation function and the parameter Kc, which characterizes its decay at large distances. (orig.)