Trapping of three-dimensional Holstein polarons by various impurities

Abstract

We study the bound states of a three-dimensional Holstein polaron near various kinds of single impurities, using the momentum average approximation. We show that the electron-phonon coupling is responsible for a strong renormalization of the impurity potential, resulting in an effective potential with significant retardation effects, which describes essential physics ignored by "instantaneous" approximations. The accuracy of our approximation is gauged by comparison with results from Diagrammatic Monte Carlo for the case of an impurity that modifies the on-site energy of the electron. We also discuss impurities that modify the local strength of the electron-phonon coupling, as well as isotope substitutions that change both the electron-phonon coupling and the phonon frequency, and contrast and highlight the difference between these cases.