Interacting quantum wires: A possible explanation for the 0.7 anomalous conductance

We investigate an effective one-dimensional conducting channel considering both the contact umklapp and the Coulomb electron-electron interaction. We show that, at low electronic density, the proximity to the Wigner crystal reproduces the anomaly in conductance at 0.7G₀. The crucial ingredient of our theory is the fact that the gate voltage acts as a bias controlling the intensity of the umklapp term. At large gate voltages, the umklapp vanishes and we obtain a conducting quantum wire with a perfect conductance. At low gate voltages, the Wigner crystal is pinned by the umklapp term, giving rise to an insulating behavior with vanishing conductance. This crossover pattern has a transition point which can be identified with the anomalous conductance around 0.7G₀. This picture is obtained within the framework of a renormalization group calculation. The conductance static regime is achieved by taking first the limit of finite length and then the limit of zero frequency.