Metal-Insulator Transition of the Quasi-One Dimensional Luttinger Liquid Due to the Long-Range Character of the Coulomb Interaction

An instability of the quasi-1D Luttinger liquid associated with the metal - insulator transition is considered. The homogeneous metal ground state of this liquid is demonstrated to be unstable and the charge-density wave arises in the system. The wavevector of this wave has nonzero component both along the direction of the chains and in the perpendicular direction. The ground state of the system has a dielectric gap at the Fermi surface, the value of this gap being calculated.