New Evidence for ``Confined Coherence'' in Weakly Coupled Luttinger Liquids

Abstract

On the basis of a calculation of the exact interliquid hopping rate and an approximate single particle Green's function, we present new evidence for the existence of a phase of relevant but incoherent inter-Luttinger liquid transport. This phase of ``confined coherence'' occurs when the Luttinger liquid exponent alpha satisfies alpha_c<alpha<1/2. We argue that alpha_c is strictly bounded above by 1/4, and is probably substantially smaller, especially in spin-charge separated Luttinger liquids. We also discuss connections with the work of others.