The Peierls Instability Including Non-Linear Screening.

In this paper we wish to determine the conditions under which a one-dimensional 1D metal undergoes a Peierls instability PI at 0 K, when screening by nearly free conduction electrons is included. Many years ago Peierls suggested, more or less in passing, that a 1D metal would be inherently unstable to a lattice deformation of wave-number q 2 K sub F, K sub F Fermi wavenumber. His suggestion was later proved at least partially correct in papers by Frohlich and by Rice and Strassler in which electron-electron interaction, and hence screening, was ignored.