Identification of excitons in conjugated polymers: A density-matrix renormalization-group study

This work addresses the question of whether low-lying excitations in conjugated polymers are comprised of free charge carriers or excitons. States are characterized as bound or unbound according to the scaling of the average particle-hole separation with system size. We critically examine other criteria commonly used to characterize states. The polymer is described by an extended Hubbard model with alternating transfer integrals. The model is solved by exact diagonalization and the density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) method. We demonstrate that the DMRG accurately determines excitation energies, transition dipole moments and particle-hole separations of a number of dipole-forbidden (Ag) and dipole-allowed (Bᵤ) states. Within a parameter regime considered reasonable for polymers such as polyacetylene, it is found that the charge gap, often used to define the exciton binding energy, is not a good criterion by which to decide whether a state is bound or unbound. The essential nonlinear optical state mAg is found to mark the onset of unbound excitations in the Ag symmetry sector. In the Bᵤ symmetry sector, on the other hand, it is found that all low-lying states are unbound and that there is no well-defined nBᵤ state. That is, the 1Bᵤ state marks the onset of unbound excitations in this sector.