276 research outputs found
Quenched and Negative Hall Effect in Periodic Media: Application to Antidot Superlattices
We find the counterintuitive result that electrons move in OPPOSITE direction
to the free electron E x B - drift when subject to a two-dimensional periodic
potential. We show that this phenomenon arises from chaotic channeling
trajectories and by a subtle mechanism leads to a NEGATIVE value of the Hall
resistivity for small magnetic fields. The effect is present also in
experimentally recorded Hall curves in antidot arrays on semiconductor
heterojunctions but so far has remained unexplained.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figs on request, RevTeX3.0, Europhysics Letters, in pres
Efficient Diagonalization of Kicked Quantum Systems
We show that the time evolution operator of kicked quantum systems, although
a full matrix of size NxN, can be diagonalized with the help of a new method
based on a suitable combination of fast Fourier transform and Lanczos algorithm
in just N^2 ln(N) operations. It allows the diagonalization of matrizes of
sizes up to N\approx 10^6 going far beyond the possibilities of standard
diagonalization techniques which need O(N^3) operations. We have applied this
method to the kicked Harper model revealing its intricate spectral properties.Comment: Text reorganized; part on the kicked Harper model extended. 13 pages
RevTex, 1 figur
How branching can change the conductance of ballistic semiconductor devices
We demonstrate that branching of the electron flow in semiconductor
nanostructures can strongly affect macroscopic transport quantities and can
significantly change their dependence on external parameters compared to the
ideal ballistic case even when the system size is much smaller than the mean
free path. In a corner-shaped ballistic device based on a GaAs/AlGaAs
two-dimensional electron gas we observe a splitting of the commensurability
peaks in the magnetoresistance curve. We show that a model which includes a
random disorder potential of the two-dimensional electron gas can account for
the random splitting of the peaks that result from the collimation of the
electron beam. The shape of the splitting depends on the particular realization
of the disorder potential. At the same time magnetic focusing peaks are largely
unaffected by the disorder potential.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
What determines the spreading of a wave packet?
The multifractal dimensions D2^mu and D2^psi of the energy spectrum and
eigenfunctions, resp., are shown to determine the asymptotic scaling of the
width of a spreading wave packet. For systems where the shape of the wave
packet is preserved the k-th moment increases as t^(k*beta) with
beta=D2^mu/D2^psi, while in general t^(k*beta) is an optimal lower bound.
Furthermore, we show that in d dimensions asymptotically in time the center of
any wave packet decreases spatially as a power law with exponent D_2^psi - d
and present numerical support for these results.Comment: Physical Review Letters to appear, 4 pages postscript with figure
A repulsive trap for two electrons in a magnetic field
We study numerically and analytically the dynamics of two classical electrons
with Coulomb interaction in a two dimensional antidot superlattice potential in
the presence of crossed electric and magnetic fields. It is found that near one
antidot the electron pair can be trapped for a long time and the escape rate
from such a trap is proportional to the square of a weak electric field. This
is qualitatively different from the case of noninteracting electrons which are
trapped forever by the antidot. For the pair propagation in the antidot
superlattice we found a broad parameter regime for which the pair is stable and
where two repulsive electrons propagate together on an enormously large
distance.Comment: revtex, 5 pages, 6 figure
Experimental evidence for the role of cantori as barriers in a quantum system
We investigate the effect of cantori on momentum diffusion in a quantum
system. Ultracold caesium atoms are subjected to a specifically designed
periodically pulsed standing wave. A cantorus separates two chaotic regions of
the classical phase space. Diffusion through the cantorus is classically
predicted. Quantum diffusion is only significant when the classical phase-space
area escaping through the cantorus per period greatly exceeds Planck's
constant. Experimental data and a quantum analysis confirm that the cantori act
as barriers.Comment: 19 pages including 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical
Review E in March 199
Magneto-Transport in the Two-Dimensional Lorentz Gas
We consider the two-dimensional Lorentz gas with Poisson distributed hard
disk scatterers and a constant magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of
motion. The velocity autocorrelation is computed numerically over the full
range of densities and magnetic fields with particular attention to the
percolation threshold between hopping transport and pure edge currents. The
Ohmic and Hall conductance are compared with mode-coupling theory and a recent
generalized kinetic equation valid for low densities and small fields. We argue
that the long time tail as persists for non-zero magnetic field.Comment: 7 pages, 14 figures. Uses RevTeX and epsfig.sty. Submitted to
Physical Review
Equilibrium and dynamical properties of two dimensional self-gravitating systems
A system of N classical particles in a 2D periodic cell interacting via
long-range attractive potential is studied. For low energy density a
collapsed phase is identified, while in the high energy limit the particles are
homogeneously distributed. A phase transition from the collapsed to the
homogeneous state occurs at critical energy U_c. A theoretical analysis within
the canonical ensemble identifies such a transition as first order. But
microcanonical simulations reveal a negative specific heat regime near .
The dynamical behaviour of the system is affected by this transition : below
U_c anomalous diffusion is observed, while for U > U_c the motion of the
particles is almost ballistic. In the collapsed phase, finite -effects act
like a noise source of variance O(1/N), that restores normal diffusion on a
time scale diverging with N. As a consequence, the asymptotic diffusion
coefficient will also diverge algebraically with N and superdiffusion will be
observable at any time in the limit N \to \infty. A Lyapunov analysis reveals
that for U > U_c the maximal exponent \lambda decreases proportionally to
N^{-1/3} and vanishes in the mean-field limit. For sufficiently small energy,
in spite of a clear non ergodicity of the system, a common scaling law \lambda
\propto U^{1/2} is observed for any initial conditions.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex - 15 PS Figs - Subimitted to Physical Review E - Two
column version with included figures : less paper waste
Bloch Electrons in a Magnetic Field - Why Does Chaos Send Electrons the Hard Way?
We find that a 2D periodic potential with different modulation amplitudes in
x- and y-direction and a perpendicular magnetic field may lead to a transition
to electron transport along the direction of stronger modulation and to
localization in the direction of weaker modulation. In the experimentally
accessible regime we relate this new quantum transport phenomenon to avoided
band crossing due to classical chaos.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, minor modifications, PRL to appea
- …