Local Impurity Phase Pinning and Pinning Force in Charge Density Waves

Abstract

Starting from the static Fukuyama-Lee-Rice equation for a three-dimensional incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) in quasi one-dimensional conductors a solvable model for local phase pinning by impurities is defined and studied. We find that average CDW energy and average pinning force show critical behaviour with respect to the pinning parameter $h$. Specifically the pinning force exhibits a threshold at $h=1$ with exponent $\beta=2$. Our model examplifies a general concept of local impurity pinning in which the force exerted by the impurity on the periodic CDW structure becomes multivalued and metastable states appear beyond a threshold. It is found that local impurity pinning becomes less effective at low temperatures and may eventually cease completely. These results are independent of spatial dimensionality as expected for local impurity pinning. Comparison with Larkin's model is also made.