Magnetic forces and localized resonances in electron transfer through quantum rings

We study the current flow through semiconductor quantum rings. In high magnetic field the current is usually injected to the arm of the ring preferred by classical magnetic forces. However, for narrow magnetic field intervals that appear periodically on the magnetic field scale the current is injected to the other arm of the ring. We indicate that the appearance of the anomalous -- non-classical -- current circulation results from Fano interference involving localized resonant states. The identification of the Fano interference is based on the comparison of the solution of the scattering problem with the results of the stabilization method. The latter employs the bound-state type calculations and allows to extract both the energy of metastable states localized within the ring and the width of resonances by analysis of the energy spectrum of a finite size system in function of its length. The Fano resonances involving states of anomalous current circulation become extremely narrow on both magnetic field and energy scales. This is consistent with the orientation of the Lorentz force that tends to keep the electron within the ring and thus increases the lifetime of the electron localization within the ring. Absence of periodic Fano resonances in electron transfer probability through a quantum ring containing an elastic scatterer is also explained.Comment: This paper explains the origins of anomalous (non-classical) current circulation reported in http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.219

A theoretical model for single molecule incoherent scanning tunneling spectroscopy

Single molecule scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), with dephasing due to elastic and inelastic scattering, is of some current interest. Motivated by this, we report an extended Huckel theory (EHT) based mean-field Non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) transport model with electron-phonon scattering treated within the self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA). Furthermore, a procedure based on EHT basis set modification is described. We use this model to study the effect of the temperature dependent dephasing, due to low lying modes in far-infrared range for which hw<<kT, on the resonant conduction through highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level of a phenyl dithiol molecule sandwiched between two fcc-Au(111) contacts. Furthermore, we propose to include dephasing in room temperature molecular resonant conduction calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

The effect of vacancy-induced magnetism on electronic transport in armchair carbon nanotubes

The influence of local magnetic moment formation around three kinds of vacancies on the electron conduction through metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes is studied by use of the Landauer formalism within the coherent regime. The method is based on the single-band tight-binding Hamiltonian, a surface Green's function calculation, and the mean-field Hubbard model. The numerical results show that the electronic transport is spin-polarized due to the localized magnetic moments and it is strongly dependent on the geometry of the vacancies. For all kinds of vacancies, by including the effects of local magnetic moments, the electron scattering increases with respect to the nonmagnetic vacancies case and hence, the current-voltage characteristic of the system changes. In addition, a high value for the electron-spin polarization can be obtained by applying a suitable gate voltage.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Interplay of bulk and edge states in transport of two-dimensional topological insulators

We study transport in two-terminal metal/quantum spin-Hall insulator (QSHI)/metal junctions. We show that the conductance signals originating from the bulk and the edge contributions are not additive. While for a long junction the transport is determined by the edge states contribution, for a short junction, the conductance signal is built from both bulk and edge states in the ratio which depends on the width of the sample. Further, in the topological insulator regime the conductance for short junctions shows a non-monotonic behavior as a function of the sample length. Surprisingly this non-monotonic behavior of conductance can be traced to the formation of an effectively propagating solution which is robust against scalar disorder. Our predictions should be experimentally verifiable in HgTe QWs and Bi$_2$Se$_3$ thin films.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Z2 Monopoles, Vortices, and the Deconfinement Transition in Mixed Action SU(2) Gauge Theory

Adding separate chemical potentials lambda and gamma for Z2 monopoles and vortices respectively in the Villain form of the mixed fundamental-adjoint action for the SU(2) lattice gauge theory, we investigate their role in the interplay between the deconfinement and bulk phase transitions using Monte Carlo techniques. Setting lambda to be nonzero, we find that the line of deconfinement transitions is shifted in the coupling plane but it behaves curiously also like the bulk transition line for large enough adjoint coupling, as for lambda=0. In a narrow range of couplings, however, we find separate deconfinement and bulk phase transitions on the same lattice for nonzero and large lambda, suggesting the two to be indeed coincident in the region where a first order deconfinement phase transition is seen. In the limit of large lambda and gamma, we obtain only lines of second order deconfinement phase transitions, as expected from universality.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures include

Strong flavour changing effective operator contributions to single top quark production

We study the effects of dimension six effective operators on the production of single top quarks at the LHC. The operator set considered includes terms with effective gluon interactions and four-fermion terms. Analytic expressions for the several partonic cross sections of single top production will be presented, as well as the results of their integration on the parton density functions.Comment: 20 pages, 7 fig

On the Observability of "Invisible" / "Nearly Invisible" Charginos

It is shown that if the charginos decay into very soft leptons or hadrons + $\not{E}$ due to degeneracy/ near- degeneracy with the LSP or the sneutrino, the observability of the recently proposed signal via the single photon (+ soft particles) + $\not{E}$ channel crucially depends on the magnitude of the \SNU mass due to destructive interferences in the matrix element squared. If the \SNU's and, consequently, left-sleptons are relatively light, the size of the signal, previously computed in the limit \MSNU \to \infty only, is drastically reduced. We present the formula for the signal cross section in a model independent way and discuss the observability of the signal at LEP 192 and NLC energies.Comment: 27 pages, Late

Electrical Conductance of Molecular Wires

Molecular wires (MW) are the fundamental building blocks for molecular electronic devices. They consist of a molecular unit connected to two continuum reservoirs of electrons (usually metallic leads). We rely on Landauer theory as the basis for studying the conductance properties of MW systems. This relates the lead to lead current to the transmission probability for an electron to scatter through the molecule. Two different methods have been developed for the study of this scattering. One is based on a solution of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation and the other solves for the {\bf t} matrix using Schroedinger's equation. We use our methodology to study two problems of current interest. The first MW system consists of 1,4 benzene-dithiolate (BDT) bonded to two gold nanocontacts. Our calculations show that the conductance is sensitive to the chemical bonding between the molecule and the leads. The second system we study highlights the interesting phenomenon of antiresonances in MW. We derive an analytic formula predicting at what energies antiresonances should occur in the transmission spectra of MW. A numerical calculation for a MW consisting of filter molecules attached to an active molecule shows the existence of an antiresonance at the energy predicted by our formula.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Effects of Disorder and Momentum Relaxation on the Intertube Transport of Incommensurate Carbon Nanotube Ropes and Multiwall Nanotubes

We study theoretically the electrical transport between aligned carbon nanotubes in nanotube ropes, and between shells in multiwall carbon nanotubes. We focus on transport between two metallic nanotubes (or shells) of different chiralities with mismatched Fermi momenta and incommensurate periodicities. We perform numerical calculations of the transport properties of such systems within a tight-binding formalism. For clean (disorder-free) nanotubes the intertube transport is strongly suppressed as a result of momentum conservation. For clean nanotubes, the intertube transport is typically dominated by the loss of momentum conservation at the contacts. We discuss in detail the effects of disorder, which also breaks momentum conservation, and calculate the effects of localised scatterers of various types. We show that physically relevant disorder potentials lead to very dramatic enhancements of the intertube conductance. We show that recent experimental measurements of the intershell transport in multiwall nanotubes are consistent with our theoretical results for a model of short-ranged correlated disorder.Comment: References adde

Extending additivity from symmetric to asymmetric channels

We prove a lemma which allows one to extend results about the additivity of the minimal output entropy from highly symmetric channels to a much larger class. A similar result holds for the maximal output $p$-norm. Examples are given showing its use in a variety of situations. In particular, we prove the additivity and the multiplicativity for the shifted depolarising channel.Comment: 8 pages. This is the latest version of the first half of the original paper. The other half will appear in another pape