On Pseudogaps in One-Dimensional Models with Quasi-Long-Ranged-Order

We use analytic and numerical methods to determine the density of states of a one-dimensional electron gas coupled to a spatially random quasi-static back-scattering potential of long correlation length. Our results provide insight into the ’pseudogap’ phenomenon occurring in underdoped high-Tc superconductors, quasi-one-dimensional organic conductors and liquid metals. They demonstrate the important role played by amplitude fluctuations of the backscattering potential and by fluctuations in gradients of the potential, and confirm the importance of the self-consistency which is a key feature of the ’FLEX’-type approximations for the electron Green’s function. Our results allow an assessment of the merits of different approximations: a previous approximate treatment presented by Sadovskii and, we show, justified by a WKB approximation gives a reasonably good representation, except for a “central peak” anomaly, of our numerically computed densities of states, 1 whereas a previous approximation introduced by Lee, Rice and Anderson is not as accurate.