CROSSOVER BETWEEN LUTTINGER AND FERMI-LIQUID BEHAVIOR IN WEAKLY COUPLED METALLIC CHAINS

We use higher-dimensional bosonization to study the normal state of el ectrons in weakly coupled metallic chains interacting with long-range Coulomb forces. Particular attention is paid to the crossover between Luttinger and Fermi-liquid behavior as the interchain hopping t(perpen dicular to) is varied. Although in the physically interesting case of finite but small t(perpendicular to) the quasiparticle residue does no t vanish, the single-particle Green's function exhibits the signature of Luttinger-liquid behavior (i.e., anomalous scaling and spin-charge separation) in a large intermediate parameter regime. Using realistic parameters, we find that the scaling behavior in this regime is charac terized by an anomalous dimension of the order of unity, as suggested by recent experiments on quasi-one-dimensional conductors. Our calcula tion also gives insights into the approximations inherent in higher-di mensional bosonization; in particular, we show that the replacement of a curved Fermi surface by a finite number M of flat patches can give rise to unphysical nesting singularities in the single-particle Green' s function, which disappear only in the limit M-->infinity or if curva ture effects are included. We also compare our approach with other met hods. This work extends our recent letter.