Transport across an Anderson quantum dot in the intermediate coupling regime

We describe linear and nonlinear transport across a strongly interacting single impurity Anderson model quantum dot with intermediate coupling to the leads, i.e. with tunnel coupling Γ of the order of the thermal energy k _B T. The coupling is large enough that sequential tunneling processes (second order in the tunneling Hamiltonian) alone do not suffice to properly describe the transport characteristics. Upon applying a density matrix approach, the current is expressed in terms of rates obtained by considering a very small class of diagrams which dress the sequential tunneling processes by charge fluctuations. We call this the “dressed second order” (DSO) approximation. One advantage of the DSO is that, still in the Coulomb blockade regime, it can describe the crossover from thermally broadened to tunneling broadened conductance peaks. When the temperature is decreased even further (k _B T < Γ), the DSO captures Kondesque behaviours of the Anderson quantum dot qualitatively: we find a zero bias anomaly of the differential conductance versus applied bias, an enhancement of the conductance with decreasing temperature as well as universality of the shape of the conductance as function of the temperature. We can without complications address the case of a spin degenerate level split energetically by a magnetic field. In case spin dependent chemical potentials are assumed and only one of the four chemical potentials is varied, the DSO yields in principle only one resonance. This seems to be in agreement with experiments with pseudo spin [U. Wilhelm, J. Schmid, J. Weis, K.V. Klitzing, Physica E 14, 385 (2002)]. Furthermore, we get qualitative agreement with experimental data showing a cross-over from the Kondo to the empty orbital regime.     

Dy(Fe0.8Al0.2)2单晶体的宏观量子效应

测量了Dy(Fe_0.8Al_0.2)₂单晶体在[100],[110]和[111]方向上的退磁曲线、内禀矫顽力和磁黏滞性系数随温度的变化.认为退磁曲线出现台阶和大跳跃、内禀矫顽力随温度变化存在峰值、磁黏滞性系数与温度无关等都是畴壁隧穿能垒的宏观量子效应的反映.实验上得出由经典热激活到量子隧穿的交界温度约为5.5K. 关键词：     

Non-equilibrium effects and self-heating in single-electron Coulomb blockade devices

We present a comprehensive investigation of non-equilibrium effects and self-heating in single electron transfer devices based primarily on the Coulomb blockade effect. During an electron trapping process, a hot electron maybe deposited in a quantum dot or metal island, with an extra energy usually of the order of the Coulomb charging energy, which is much higher than the temperature in typical experiments. The hot electron may relax through three channels: tunneling back and forth to the feeding lead (or island), emitting phonons, and exciting background electrons. Depending on the magnitudes of the rates in the latter two channels relative to the device operation frequency and to each other, the system may be in one of three different regimes: equilibrium, non-equilibrium, and self-heating (partial equilibrium). In the equilibrium regime, a hot electron fully gives up its energy to phonons within a pump cycle. In the non-equilibrium regime, the relaxation is via tunneling with a distribution of characteristic rates; the approach to equilibrium goes like a power law of time (frequency) instead of an exponential. This channel is plagued completely in the continuum limit of the single-electron levels. In the self-heating regime, the hot electron thermalizes quickly with background electrons, whose temperature T_e is elevated above the lattice temperature T_ol. We have calculated the coefficient in the well-known T⁵ law of energy dissipation rate, and compared the results to experimental values for aluminum and copper islands and for a two-dimensional semiconductor quantum dot. Moreover, we have obtained different scaling relations between the electron temperature, the operation frequency and device size for various types of devices.     

Hypothesis about electron quantum tunneling during sonochemical splitting of water molecule

Quantum tunneling in chemistry is often attributed to the processes at low or near room temperatures when the rate of thermal reactions becomes far less than the rate of quantum tunneling. However, in some rapid processes, quantum tunneling can be observed even at high temperatures. Herein, we report the experimental evidence for anomalous H/D kinetic isotope effect (KIE) during sonochemical dissociation of water molecule driven by 20 kHz power ultrasound measured in H₂O/D₂O mixtures saturated with Ar or Xe. Hydrogen released during ultrasonic treatment is enriched by light isotope. The observed H/D KIE (α = 2.15–1.50) is much larger than what is calculated assuming a classical KIE for T_g = 5000 K (α = 1.15) obtained from the sonoluminescence spectra in H₂O and D₂O. Furthermore, the α values sharply decrease with increasing of H₂O content in H₂O/D₂O mixtures reaching a steady-state value close to α = 1.50, which also cannot be explained by O-H/O-D zero-point energy difference. We suggest that these results can be understood in terms of quantum electron tunneling occurring in nonequilibrium picosecond plasma produced at the last stage of cavitation bubble collapse. Thermal homolytic splitting of water molecule is inhibited by extremely short lifetime of such plasma. On the contrary, immensely short traversal time for electron tunneling in water allows H₂O dissociation by quantum tunneling mechanism.     

Quantum dynamics of superconducting point contacts: chiral anomaly,Landau–Zener transitions,and all that

Quantum effects in the dynamics of the Josephson phase difference in Josephson junctions with large electron transparency D are studied in the adiabatic regime, when the characteristic charging energyE_C of the junction is much smaller than the superconducting energy gap Δ. In isolated junctions, quantum phase fluctuations are large and manifest themselves as Coulomb blockade of Cooper pair tunneling. The amplitude of the Coulomb blockade oscillations is calculated for single-mode junctions with arbitrary D. In particular, it is shown that the chiral anomaly completely suppresses Coulomb blockade in ballistic junctions with D =  1, and the suppression process at D →  1 can be described as the Landau–Zener transition in imaginary time. In the regime when quantum phase fluctuations are small, they lead to quantum decay of supercurrent states due to macroscopic quantum tunneling of phase through the Josephson potential barrier. The decay rate is found in the nearly-ballistic junctions.     

Phonon transport in superconducting EuBa2Cu3O7−x

We have measured the thermal conductivity, Young modulus sound velocity and internal friction of a polycrystalline sample of the ceramic superconductor EuBa₂Cu₃O_7-x. The low temperature data can be quantitavely understood assuming the interaction of phonons with tunneling systems.     

Dissipative tunneling at finite temperature

A simple theory is presented for the influence of a weakly coupled interaction system on the tunneling of a particle out of a metastable well. It is based on the standard model of momentum and energy transfer to an infinite set of oscillators and is applied to the case of phase tunneling in a Josephson contact. The distribution of the energy transfer and in particular the Debye-Waller factor for elastic processes is determined by the imaginary part of the dielectric function. For small damping γ the main influence of dissipation on the total tunneling probability is contained in a factor exp —AMγ(Δq)². The numerical coefficientA and the distance Δq under the barrier depend on the considered tunneling state andA(T) vanishes at a temperatureT ^* above which classical activation prevails. The tunneling probability of any level is therefore predicted to increase with temperature. In additional general expressions are derived for the correlation functions of a damped quantum oscillator in terms of the classical response of the interaction system.     

The spin-1 anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice at low temperatures

In this paper we study the low temperature behavior of the quantum S=1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet with exchange and single-site anisotropies on the square lattice. The properties of the model change drastically as the single-site anisotropy D varies from very small to very large values. A quantum phase transition takes place at a critical value D=D_C. We study the low D phase using a self-consistent harmonic approximation and a schematic phase diagram is proposed.     

Dipolar interaction and incoherent quantum tunneling: a Monte Carlo study of magnetic relaxation

We study the magnetic relaxation of a system of localized spins interacting through weak dipole interactions, at a temperature large with respect to the ordering temperature but low with respect to the crystal field level splitting. The relaxation results from quantum spin tunneling but is only allowed on sites where the dipole field is very small. At low times, the magnetization decrease is proportional to as predicted by Prokofiev and Stamp, and at long times the relaxation can be described as an extension of a relaxed zone. The results can be directly compared with very recent experimental data on Fe₈ molecular clusters. Received 9 February 1999     

A model of enhanced STM current due to semiconductor optical absorption

We present a simple model for the change in tunneling current between a semiconductor surface and a metal tip under spectroscopic illumination in a scanning tunneling microscope. This model predicts a sharp increase in the tunneling current due to the increase in the conduction band carrier density when the photon energy exceeds the optical band gap. The tunneling current for a large diffusion length has a more pronounced onset than for a small length. Our model should provide, when combined with experiments, a method of determining localized effective stoichiometry, and therefore provides a localized alternative to the use of optical absorption measurements. Our theoretical tunneling current versus photon energy curves are in good qualitative agreement with the existing experimentally measured curves for Si, GaAs, and InP obtained by Qian and Wessels. In addition, we have examined the effects of temperature, surface recombination velocity, and degeneracy on our theoretical results for the Hg_1−xCd_xTe, Hg_1−xZn_xTe, and Hg_1−xZn_xSe ternary narrow gap semiconductor systems.     

Black hole evaporation in a noncommutative charged Vaidya model

We study the black hole evaporation and Hawking radiation for a noncommutative charged Vaidya black hole. For this purpose, we determine a spherically symmetric charged Vaidya model and then formulate a noncommutative Reissner-Nordstr?m-like solution of this model, which leads to an exact (t ? r)-dependent metric. The behavior of the temporal component of this metric and the corresponding Hawking temperature are investigated. The results are shown in the form of graphs. Further, we examine the tunneling process of charged massive particles through the quantum horizon. We find that the tunneling amplitude is modified due to noncommutativity. Also, it turns out that the black hole evaporates completely in the limits of large time and horizon radius. The effect of charge is to reduce the temperature from a maximum value to zero. We note that the final stage of black hole evaporation is a naked singularity.     

Flow equations for the spin-boson problem

Using continuous unitary transformations recently introduced by Wegner [1], we obtain flow equations for the parameters of the spin-boson Hamiltonian. Interactions not contained in the original Hamiltonian are generated by this unitary transformation. Within an approximation that neglects additional interactions quadratic in the bath operators, we can close the flow equations. Applying this formalism to the case of Ohmic dissipation at zero temperature, we calculate the renormalized tunneling frequency. We find a transition from an untrapped to trapped state at the critical coupling constant α _c =1. We also obtain the static susceptibility via the equilibrium spin correlation function. Our results are both consistent with results known from the Kondo problem and those obtained from mode-coupling theories. Using this formalism at finite temperature, we find a transition from coherent to incoherent tunneling atT ₂ ^* ≈2T ₁ ^* , whereT ₁ ^* is the crossover temperature of the dynamics known from the NIBA.     

Quantum entanglement in a molecular magnet with itinerant electrons

We study the behaviors of pairwise and multipartite entanglement in a molecular magnet with itinerant electrons. In different ground states, the ratio of pairwise to multipartite entanglement is different. The monogamy of quantum entanglement is shown. Both charge correlation and spin correlation play important roles in the entanglement. The entanglements are generally suppressed by the on-site repulsion U and are mainly determined by spin correlation for large U and by charge correlation for small U. At finite temperature, in general, the thermal fluctuation suppresses the entanglements. However, in some cases, the multipartite entanglement can be enhanced by increasing temperature. Comparing the Heisenberg model with the Hubbard model, it is found that thermal entanglement in the itinerant electron system is more robust because charge correlation can survive at much higher temperature than spin correlation.     

Transport through a double barrier for interacting quasi one-dimensional electrons in a quantum wire in the presence of a transverse magnetic field

We discuss the Luttinger liquid behaviour of a semiconducting quantum wire. We show that the measured value of the bulk critical exponent, α_bulk, for the tunneling density of states can be easily calculated. Then, the problem of the transport through a quantum dot formed by two quantum point contacts along the quantum wire, weakly coupled to spinless Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids is studied, including the action of a strong transverse magnetic field B. The known magnetic dependent peaks of the conductance, G(B), in the ballistic regime at a very low temperature, T, have to be reflected also in the transport at higher T and in different regimes. The temperature dependence of the maximum G_max of the conductance peak, according to the Correlated Sequential Tunneling theory, yields the power law G_max∝T^{2α end-1}, with the critical exponent, α_end, strongly reduced by B. This behaviour suggests the use of a similar device as a magnetic field modulated transistor.     

Quantum ratchets and quantum heat pumps

Quantum ratchets are Brownian motors in which the quantum dynamics of particles induces qualitatively new behavior. We review a series of experiments in which asymmetric semiconductor devices of sub-micron dimensions are used to study quantum ratchets for electrons. In rocked quantum-dot ratchets electron-wave interference is used to create a non-linear voltage response, leading to a ratchet effect. The direction of the net ratchet current in this type of device can be sensitively controlled by changing one of the following experimental variables: a small external magnetic field, the amplitude of the rocking force, or the Fermi energy. We also describe a tunneling ratchet in which the current direction depends on temperature. In our discussion of the tunneling ratchet we distinguish between three contributions to the non-linear current–voltage characteristics that lead to the ratchet effect: thermal excitation over energy barriers, tunneling through barriers, and wave reflection from barriers. Finally, we discuss the operation of adiabatically rocked tunneling ratchets as heat pumps. Received: 8 February 2002 / Accepted: 11 February 2002 / Published online: 22 April 2002     

Coulomb oscillations in partially open quantum dots

We report tunneling measurements of the Coulomb blockade in a single quantum dot at zero magnetic field and dilution refrigerator temperatures with weak tunneling from the dot to one lead (the ‘closed’ lead, conductanceG_closed) and strong tunneling to the other lead (the ‘open’ lead, conductanceG_open). We observe suppression of the Coulomb oscillations withG_open≈2e²/h, and then see the oscillations return forG_open>2e²/h. The oscillations show a strikingly lower threshold temperature atG_open≈2e²/hthan for greater or lesserG_open.     

Vortex-antivortex oscillation and tunneling in Bose-Einstein condensates

We study interacting condensates in anisotropic traps. Employing a two-level mean-field theory, which is valid provided the interaction energy is much smaller than ?ω_x and ?ω_y and the number of particles N is much larger than unity, we see that even a small interaction can drastically modify the dynamics of the system as predicted by García-Ripoll et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 140403 (2001)]. In the present work, we supplement the discussion of the previous work and point out the important role of coupling between population difference and phase difference between two p states in the x and y directions. We also explore the stability of the vortex state for small systems with N ～ O(1), for which the mean-field theory is inapplicable. We performed the full quantum mechanical calculations using up to six single-particle states and showed that, when N is comparable to unity, quantum tunneling between the vortex and antivortex states can occur even though the interaction coefficient is so large that the vortex-antivortex oscillation is prohibited within the mean-field theory.     

Is Hawking temperature modified by the quantum tunneling beyond semiclassical approximation

Hawking temperature of a static and spherically symmetric black hole beyond semiclassical approximation is studied. The calculations show us that different definition of the particle’s energy gives different Hawking temperature. However, we argue that the result obtained using the standard definition of the particle energy is reasonable because it keeps the validity of the first law of the thermodynamics, i.e., both the Hawking temperature and entropy are not modified by the quantum tunneling beyond semiclassical approximation. The result shows us that any hypothetical (^h/_2p){\hbar} corrections to the tunneling rate are to be interpreted not as quantum corrections to the Hawking temperature but as fluctuations about a thermal background.     

Electron spin resonance studies on quantum tunneling in spinel ferrite nanoparticles

The electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer, a very sensitive instrument with fast detecting window to explore quantum phase transitions for magnetic nanoparticles, was exploited to study the fascinating interplay between thermal and quantum fluctuations in the vicinity of a quantum critical point. We have measured ESR in ferrofluid samples containing nanosize particles of Fe₂O₃. The evolution of the ESR spectrum with temperature suggests that quantum tunneling of spins occurs in single domain magnetic particles in the low temperature regime. The effects of various microwave fields, particle sizes, and temperatures on the magnetic states of single domain spinel ferrite nanoparticles are investigated. We can consistently explain experimental data assuming that, as the temperature decreases, the spectrum changes from superparamagnetic (SPR) to blocked SPR and finally evolves quantum superparamagnetic behaviour as the temperature lowers down further. A nanoparticle system of a highly anisotropic magnetic material can be qualitatively specified by a simple quantum spin model, or by the Heisenberg model with strong easy-plane anisotropy.Received: 29 August 2003, Published online: 15 October 2003PACS: 76.30.-v Electron paramagnetic resonance and relaxation - 75.40.Cx Static properties (order parameter, static susceptibility, heat capacities, critical exponents, etc.) - 05.30.-d Quantum statistical mechanics - 75.50.Dd Nonmetallic ferromagnetic materials     

Decoherence due to nodal quasiparticles in <Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis>-wave qubits

We study the Josephson junction between two d-wave superconductors, which is discussed as an implementation of a qubit. We propose an approach to calculate the decoherence time due to an intrinsic dissipative process: quantum tunneling between the two minima of the double-well potential excites nodal quasiparticles, which lead to incoherent damping of quantum oscillations. The decoherence is weakest in the mirror junction, where the contribution of nodal quasiparticles corresponds to the superohmic dissipation and becomes small at small tunnel splitting of the energy level in the double-well potential. For available experimental data, we estimate the quality factor.