  We have studied zigzag and armchair graphene nano ribbons (GNRs), described
by the Hubbard Hamiltonian using quantum many body configuration interaction
methods. Due to finite termination, we find that the bipartite nature of the
graphene lattice gets destroyed at the edges making the ground state of the
zigzag GNRs a high spin state, whereas the ground state of the armchair GNRs
remains a singlet. Our calculations of charge and spin densities suggest that,
although the electron density prefers to accumulate on the edges, instead of
spin polarization, the up and down spins prefer to mix throughout the GNR
lattice. While the many body charge gap results in insulating behavior for both
kinds of GNRs, the conduction upon application of electric field is still
possible through the edge channels because of their high electron density.
Analysis of optical states suggest differences in quantum efficiency of
luminescence for zigzag and armchair GNRs, which can be probed by simple
experiments.
