Threshold electric field in unconventional density waves - art. no. 041101

As it is well known most charge-density waves (CDW's) and spin-density wave s exhibit nonlinear transport with well-defined threshold electric field E- T. Here we study theoretically the threshold electric field of unconvention al density waves. We find that the threshold field increases monotonically with temperature without divergent behavior at T-c, unlike the one in conve ntional CDW. The present result in the three-dimensional weak pinning limit appears to describe rather well the threshold electric field observed rece ntly in the low-temperature phase of alpha-(BEDT-TTF)(2)KHg(SCN)(4).