Signatures of spin-charge separation in scanning probe microscopy

We analyze the effect of an auxiliary scatterer, such as the potential of a scanning tip, on the conductance of an interacting one-dimensional electron system. We find that the differential conductance for tunneling into the end of a semi-infinite quantum wire reflects the separation of the elementary excitations into spin and charge modes. The separation is revealed as a specific pattern in the dependence of the conductance on bias and on the position of the scatterer.