Pomeranchuk instability in doped graphene

Abstract

The density of states of graphene has van Hove singularities that can be reached by chemical doping and have already been explored in photoemission experiments. We show that in the presence of Coulomb interactions the system at the van Hove filling is likely to undergo a Pomeranchuk instability breaking the lattice point group symmetry. In the presence of an on-site Hubbard interaction the system is also unstable toward ferromagnetism. We explore the competition of the two instabilities and build the phase diagram. We also suggest that, for doping levels where the trigonal warping is noticeable, the Fermi liquid state in graphene can be stable up to zero temperature avoiding the Kohn-Luttinger mechanism and providing an example of a two-dimensional Fermi liquid at zero temperature.