Interpretive approach to collective effects of electrons in multicenter problems

Interpretive theoretical tools prove valuable in guiding the analysis of experiments in the realm of atomic clusters. Here, we review basic elements of an analytic approach that makes it possible to find and visualize the effective electrostatic potential and Coulomb correlations in multicenter problems. To illustrate the utility of these concepts we apply them to exploring molecular-doped metallic clusters. This study is aiming at a systematic, visual assessment of changes induced in screening, Coulomb correlation and effective potential by varying the charge of the electronegative impurity and its position in the cluster cage.     

Rheological behaviour and shear thickening exhibited by aqueous CTAB micellar solutions

In this experimental work we carefully investigate the rheological behaviour and in particular the shear thickening exhibited by aqueous micellar solutions of CTAB with NaSal as added counterion. We are particularly interested in the evolution of the critical shear rate (at which shear thickening occurs) versus C _D , the surfactant concentration. We show that , at fixed salt concentration C _S , increases with C _D following a power law evolution with a positive exponent of + 5.8. On the other hand we show that if the ratio C _D / C _S is fixed, decreases with C _D with a negative exponent of -2.0. Nevertheless investigations of the zero shear viscosity indicate that in all situations (implying variation of the surfactant concentration C _D , or the salt concentration C _S or the temperature) is a decreasing function of the length of the micelles. All these evolutions are compatible with a gelation mechanism which could possibly be associated with entanglement effects of large interacting flowing structures. Received: 3 March 1998 / Revised: 16 June 1998 / Accepted: 3 July 1998     

Behavior of a PZT ring under non-uniform mechanical stress

Ring-shaped lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoelectric vibrators were subjected to non-uniform mechanical stress applied by bolt clamping. The effect of mechanical stress on the effective electromechanical coupling factor (k_eff) and mechanical quality factor (Q_m) of the thickness and wall thickness modes was studied by an equivalent electric circuit analysis. The initiation and propagation of cracks under mechanical stress were also discussed based on the resonance method and the indentation technique. k_eff for both the thickness and wall thickness modes decreased with increase in mechanical stress due to de-poling of the PZT. Q_m of the thickness mode dropped sharply with increase in mechanical stress while Q_m of the wall thickness mode remained almost unchange. Existence of microcracks in a PZT vibrator can be detected by the occurrence of spurious vibrations at the wall thickness mode in the electrical impedance vs. frequency spectra.     

Kondo Resonance versus Fano Interference in Double Quantum Dots Coupled to a Two-Lead One-Ring System

We analyse the transport properties of a coupled double quantum dot （DQD） device with one of the dots （QD1） coupled to metallic leads and the other （QD2） embedded in an Aharonov-Bhom （A-B） ring by means of the slaveboson mean-field theory. It is found that in this system, the Kondo resonance and the Fano interference exist simultaneously, the enhancing Kondo effect and the increasing hopping of the QD2-Ring destroy the localized electron state in the QD2 for the QD1-leads, and accordingly, the Fano interference between the DQD-leads and the QD1-leads are suppressed. Under some conditions, the Fano interference can be quenched fully and the single Kondo resonance of the QD1-leads comes into being. Moreover, when the magnetic flux of the A-B ring is zero, the influence of the parity of the A-B ring on the transport properties is very weak, but this influence becomes more obvious with non-zero magnetic flux. Thus this model may be a candidate for future device applications.     

Quantum Phase Transition and Ferromagnetic Spin Correlation in Parallel Double Quantum Dots

We investigate electronic transport through a parallel double quantum dot （DQD） system with strong on-site Coulomb interaction, as well as the interdot tunnelling. By applying numerical renormalization group method, the ground state of the system and the transmission probability at zero temperature are obtained. For a system of quantum dots with degenerate energy levels and small interdot tunnel coupling, the spin correlations between the DQDs is ferromagnetic, and the ground state of the system is a spin-1 triplet state. The linear conductance will reach the unitary limit （2e^2/h） due to the Kondo effect at low temperature. As the interdot tunnel coupling increases, there is a quantum phase transition from ferromagnetic to anti-ferromagnetic spin correlation in DQDs and the linear conductance is strongly suppressed.     

On the theory of the Kondo effect in two-dimensional metals

The Kondo effect in a (quasi-)two-dimensional metal is studied. The special feature of the two-dimensionality is the Van Hove singularity in the electron density of states. For the band filling choosen such, that the Fermi level is close to the saddle points of the band spectrum, the Van Hove singularity comes into play and changes the usual Kondo log to the log². It turnes out to be possible to carry out the first order parquet summation and to obtain the conditions for the Kondo antiferromagnetic resonance for an arbitrary geometry of the band spectrum. The connection with the Orthogonality Catastrophe is traced and it is shown, that the weak coupling Kondo problem just corresponds to the intermediate asymptotics of the metal's relaxation in a time-dependent external potential.     

CePd2Ga3: A new ferromagnetic Kondo lattice

Various temperature-, pressure- and field dependent investigations on CePd₂Ga₃ indicate this ternary compound as belonging to the group of ferromagnetically ordered Kondo lattices, with the Curie temperatureT _C =6K and the Kondo temperatureT _K =4K. The first excited crystal field level of this hexagonal compound is about 40 K above the crystal field ground state, while the overall splitting is much larger.     

Electron interactions in an antidot in the integer quantum Hall regime

A quantum antidot, a submicron depletion region in a two-dimensional electron system, has been actively studied in the past two decades, providing a powerful tool for understanding quantum Hall systems. In a perpendicular magnetic field, electrons form bound states around the antidot. Aharonov–Bohm resonances through such bound states have been experimentally studied, showing interesting phenomena such as Coulomb charging, h/2e$h/2e$ oscillations, spectator modes, signatures of electron interactions in the line shape, Kondo effect, etc. None of them can be explained by a simple noninteracting electron approach. Theoretical models for the above observations have been developed recently, such as a capacitive-interaction model for explaining the h/2e$h/2e$ oscillations and the Kondo effect, numerical prediction of a hole maximum-density-droplet antidot ground state, and spin-density-functional theory for investigating the compressibility of antidot edges. In this review, we summarize such experimental and theoretical works on electron interactions in antidots.     

Nonequilibrium Kondo effect and Andreev reflection through double quantum dots with spin-flip scattering

The Kondo effect and the Andreev reflection tunneling through a normal (ferromagnet)-double quantum dots-superconductor hybrid system is examined in the low temperature by using the nonequilibrium Green's function technique in combination with the slave-boson mean-field theory. The interplay of the Kondo physics and the Andreev bound state physics can be controlled by varying the interdot hopping strength. The Andreev differential conductance is mainly determined by the competition between Kondo states and Andreev states. The spin-polarization of the ferromagnetic electrode increases the zero-bias Kondo peak. The spin-flip scattering influences the Kondo effect and the Andreev reflection in a nontrivial way. For the ferromagnetic electrode with sufficiently large spin polarization, the negative Andreev differential conductance is found when the spin flip strength in the double quantum dots is sufficiently strong.     

Magnetic impurities in gapless Fermi systems: perturbation theory

We consider a symmetric Anderson impurity model with a soft-gap hybridization vanishing at the Fermi level, with r>0. Three facets of the problem are examined. First the non-interacting limit, which despite its simplicity contains much physics relevant to the U>0case: it exhibits both strong coupling (SC) states (for r<1) and local moment states (for r>1), with characteristic signatures in both spectral properties and thermodynamic functions. Second, we establish general conditions upon the interaction self-energy for the occurence of a SC state for U>0. This leads to a pinning theorem, whereby the modified spectral function is pinned at the Fermi level for any U where a SC state obtains; it generalizes to arbitrary r the pinning condition upon familiar in the normal r=0 Anderson model. Finally, we consider explicitly spectral functions at the simplest level: second order perturbation theory in U, which we conclude is applicable for and r>1 but not for . Characteristic spectral features observed in numerical renormalization group calculations are thereby recovered, for both SC and LM phases; and for the SC state the modified spectral functions are found to contain a generalized Abrikosov-Suhl resonance exhibiting a characteristic low-energy Kondo scale with increasing interaction strength. Received 26 August 1999