New J. Phys. 14, 075007 (2012)

SCI

Coulomb interaction effects in graphene bilayers: electron-hole pairing and plasmaron formation

Van-Nham Phan and Holger Fehske

We report a theoretical study of the many-body effects of electron–electron interaction on the ground-state and spectral properties of double-layer graphene. Using a projector-based renormalization method we show that if a finite-voltage difference is applied between the graphene layers, electron–hole pairs can be formed and—at very low temperatures—an excitonic instability might emerge in a double-layer graphene structure. The single-particle spectral function near the Fermi surface exhibits a prominent quasiparticle peak, different from neutral (undoped) graphene bilayers. Away from the Fermi surface, we find that the charge carriers strongly interact with plasmons, thereby giving rise to a broad plasmaron peak in the angle-resolved photoemission spectrum.