Divergence of the effective mass near a density wave instability in a MOSFET system

Abstract

We study the renormalization of the Fermi-liquid parameters in the vicinity of a density wave quantum phase transition, which should occur in MOSFET systems at low densities. First, using a perturbative RPA treatment of fluctuations, we calculate the electronic self-energy and show that the effective mass diverges at the density wave transition point. Second, we go beyond perturbation theory, making use of the exact Pitaevskii identities. Within this exact analysis, we also find a divergence of the effective mass, which occurs at higher densities in the fluctuation region, as compared to the perturbation theory. This result signals the break-down of conventional Fermi-liquid description in the vicinity of the transition point. The divergence of the effective mass gives rise to a singular behavior of the electronic compressibility. We suggest that the experimentally observed enhancement of the effective mass is a precursor to a second order thermodynamic phase transition into a glassy density wave state.