Electron-induced rippling in graphene

Abstract

We show that the interaction between flexural phonons, when corrected by the exchange of electron-hole excitations, may place the graphene sheet very close to a quantum critical point characterized by the strong suppression of the bending rigidity of the membrane. Ripples arise then due to spontaneous symmetry breaking, following a mechanism similar to that responsible for the condensation of the Higgs field in relativistic field theories. In the presence of membrane tensions, ripple condensation may be reinforced or suppressed depending on the sign of the tension, following a zero-temperature buckling transition in which the order parameter is given essentially by the square of the gradient of the flexural phonon field.