Collective charge density wave motion through an ensemble of Aharonov-Bohm rings

We investigate theoretically the collective charge density wave motion through an ensemble of small disordered Aharonov-Bohm rings. It is shown that the magnetic flux modulates the threshold field and the magnetoresistance with a half flux quantum periodicity $\Phi_{0}/2=h/2e$, resulting from ensemble averaging over random scattering phases of multiple rings. The magnitude of the magnetoresistance oscillations decreases rapidly with increasing bias. This is consistent with recent experiments on $NbSe_3$ in presence of columnar defects [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 919 (1997)].Comment: 4 pages Revtex, 2 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

A minimal approach for the local statistical properties of a one-dimensional disordered wire

We consider a one-dimensional wire in gaussian random potential. By treating the spatial direction as imaginary time, we construct a `minimal' zero-dimensional quantum system such that the local statistical properties of the wire are given as products of statistically independent matrix elements of the evolution operator of the system. The space of states of this quantum system is found to be a particular non-unitary, infinite dimensional representation of the pseudo-unitary group, U(1,1). We show that our construction is minimal in a well defined sense, and compare it to the supersymmetry and Berezinskii techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 0 figure

Quantum Interference of Coulomb Interaction and Disorder: Phase Shift of Friedel Oscillations and an Instability of the Fermi Sea

We investigate the influence of interference between Coulomb interaction and impurity scattering on the static electronic response $\chi (0,q)$ in disordered metals to leading order in the effective Coulomb interaction. When the transport relaxation time $\tau _{tr}$ is much shorter than the quasiparticle life time, we find a \mbox{sgn}(2p_F-q)/\sqrt{|2p_F-q|} divergence of the polarization function at the Fermi surface ($q=2p_F$). It causes a phase shift of the Friedel oscillations as well as an enhancement of their amplitude. Our results are consistent with experiments and may be relevant for understanding the stability of the amorphous state of certain alloys against crystallization.Comment: 11 pages, 4 PostScript figures appended as a self-extracting tar archive; includes output instruction

Anisotropic weakly localized transport in nitrogen-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond films

We establish the dominant effect of anisotropic weak localization (WL) in three dimensions associated with a propagative Fermi surface, on the conductivity correction in heavily nitrogen doped ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films based on magneto-resistance studies at low temperatures. Also, low temperature electrical conductivity can show weakly localized transport in 3D combined with the effect of electron-electron interactions in these materials, which is remarkably different from the conductivity in 2DWL or strong localization regime. The corresponding dephasing time of electronic wavefunctions in these systems described as ~ T^-p with p < 1, follows a relatively weak temperature dependence compared to the generally expected nature for bulk dirty metals having $p \geq 1$. The temperature dependence of Hall (electron) mobility together with an enhanced electron density has been used to interpret the unusual magneto-transport features and show delocalized electronic transport in these n-type UNCD films, which can be described as low-dimensional superlattice structures.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, To be published in Physical Review

1D-Disordered Conductor with Loops Immersed in a Magnetic Field

We investigate the conductance of a 1-D disordered conducting loop with two contacts, immersed in a magnetic flux. We show the appearance in this model of the Al'tshuler-Aronov-Spivak behaviour. We also investigate the case of a chain of loops distributed with finite density: in this case we show that the interference effects due to the presence of the loops can lead to the delocalization of the wave function.Comment: 8 pages; LaTeX; IFUM 463/FT; to appear in Phys. Lett.

Statistical Ensembles and Spectral Correlations in Mesoscopic Systems

Employing different statistical ensembles may lead to qualitatively different results concerning averages of physical observables on the mesoscopic scale. Here we discuss differences between the canonical and the grandcanonical ensembles due to both quenched disorder and thermodynamical effects. We show how these differences are related to spectral correlations of the system at hand, and evaluate the conditions (temperature, system's size) when the thermodynamic limit is achieved. We demonstrate our approach by evaluating the heat capacity, persistent currents and the occupation probability of single electron states, employing a systematic diagrammatic approach.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, 7 figures available by request, submitted to special issue of "Chaos, Solitons & Fractals" on "Chaos and Quantum Transport in Mesoscopic Cosmos

The Amplitude of Non-Equilibrium Quantum Interference in Metallic Mesoscopic Systems

We study the influence of a DC bias voltage V on quantum interference corrections to the measured differential conductance in metallic mesoscopic wires and rings. The amplitude of both universal conductance fluctuations (UCF) and Aharonov-Bohm effect (ABE) is enhanced several times for voltages larger than the Thouless energy. The enhancement persists even in the presence of inelastic electron-electron scattering up to V ~ 1 mV. For larger voltages electron-phonon collisions lead to the amplitude decaying as a power law for the UCF and exponentially for the ABE. We obtain good agreement of the experimental data with a model which takes into account the decrease of the electron phase-coherence length due to electron-electron and electron-phonon scattering.Comment: New title, refined analysis. 7 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Europhysics Letter

Fractional flux periodicity of a twisted planar square lattice

We present fractional flux periodicity in the ground state of planar systems made of a square lattice whose boundary is compacted into a torus. The ground-state energy shows a fractional period of the fundamental unit of magnetic flux depending on the twist around the torus axis.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, corrected typos (v3

Between Poisson and GUE statistics: Role of the Breit-Wigner width

We consider the spectral statistics of the superposition of a random diagonal matrix and a GUE matrix. By means of two alternative superanalytic approaches, the coset method and the graded eigenvalue method, we derive the two-level correlation function $X_2(r)$ and the number variance $\Sigma^2(r)$. The graded eigenvalue approach leads to an expression for $X_2(r)$ which is valid for all values of the parameter $\lambda$ governing the strength of the GUE admixture on the unfolded scale. A new twofold integration representation is found which can be easily evaluated numerically. For $\lambda \gg 1$ the Breit-Wigner width $\Gamma_1$ measured in units of the mean level spacing $D$ is much larger than unity. In this limit, closed analytical expression for $X_2(r)$ and $\Sigma^2(r)$ can be derived by (i) evaluating the double integral perturbatively or (ii) an ab initio perturbative calculation employing the coset method. The instructive comparison between both approaches reveals that random fluctuations of $\Gamma_1$ manifest themselves in modifications of the spectral statistics. The energy scale which determines the deviation of the statistical properties from GUE behavior is given by $\sqrt{\Gamma_1}$. This is rigorously shown and discussed in great detail. The Breit-Wigner $\Gamma_1$ width itself governs the approach to the Poisson limit for $r\to\infty$. Our analytical findings are confirmed by numerical simulations of an ensemble of $500\times 500$ matrices, which demonstrate the universal validity of our results after proper unfolding.Comment: 25 pages, revtex, 5 figures, Postscript file also available at http://germania.ups-tlse.fr/frah

Effects of Magnetic Field on Josephson Current in SNS System

The effect of a magnetic field on Josephson current has been studied for a superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor (SNS) system, where N is a two-dimensional electron gas in a confining potential. It is found that the dependence of Josephson currents on the magnetic field are sensitive to the width of the normal metal. If the normal metal is wide and contains many channels (subbands), the current on a weak magnetic field shows a dependence similar to a Fraunhofer-pattern in SIS system and, as the field gets strong, it shows another type of oscillatory dependence on the field resulting from the Aharonov-Bohm interference between the edge states. As the number of channels decreases (i.e. normal metal gets narrower), however, the dependence in the region of the weak field deviates from a clear Fraunhofer pattern and the amplitude of the oscillatory dependence in the region of the strong field is reduced.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure