Phonon-assisted zero bias anomaly in a single-molecule quantum dot coupled to the Luttinger liquid leads

The joint effects of the electron-phonon interaction and electron-electron interaction in the Luttinger liquid leads on nonequilibrium transport through a single-molecule transistor in the Kondo regime are investigated by using the improved canonical transformation scheme and equation of motion approach. For weak intralead electron interaction, a pronounced dip around zero bias, accompanied by a series of discrete single-electron tunneling peaks is observed in the differential conductance. With the increase of the intralead interaction, the phonon-assisted peaks turn into dips, which demonstrates a phonon-assisted two-channel Kondo physics. For a certain region of interaction strength the inelastic electron tunneling can dominate electron transport. Our results well explain the experiments of zero bias anomaly. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.