Theory of Phonon-Assisted Adsorption in Graphene: Many-Body Infrared Dynamics

Abstract

We devise a theory of adsorption of low-energy atoms on suspended graphene membranes maintained at 10 K based on a model of atom-acoustic phonon interactions. Our primary technique includes a non-perturbative method which treats the dynamics of the multiple phonons in an exact manner within the purview of the Independent Boson Model. We present a study on the effects of the phonons assisting the renormalization as well as decay of the incident atom propagator and discuss results for the many-body adsorption rates for atomic hydrogen on graphene micromembranes. Additionally, we report similarities of this model with other branches of quantum field theories that include long-range interactions like quantum electrodynamics (QED) and perturbative gravity.