From Coulomb blockade to the Kondo regime in a Rashba dot

We investigate the electronic transport in a quantum wire with localized Rashba interaction. The Rashba field forms quasi-bound states which couple to the continuum states with an opposite spin direction. The presence of this Rashba dot causes Fano-like antiresonances and dips in the wire's linear conductance. The Fano lineshape arises from the interference between the direct transmission channel along the wire and the hopping through the Rashba dot. Due to the confinement, we predict the observation of large charging energies in the local Rashba region which lead to Coulomb-blockade effects in the transport properties of the wire. Importantly, the Kondo regime can be achieved with a proper tuning of the Rashba interaction, giving rise to an oscillating linear conductance for a fixed occupation of the Rashba dot.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; presentation improved, discussions extended. Published versio

Orbital fluctuations and strong correlations in quantum dots

In this lecture note we focus our attention to quantum dot systems where exotic strongly correlated behavior develops due to the presence of orbital or charge degrees of freedom. After giving a concise overview of the theory of transport and Kondo effect through a single electron transistor, we discuss how SU(4) Kondo effect develops in dots having orbitally degenerate states and in double dot systems, and then study the singlet-triplet transition in lateral quantum dots. Charge fluctuations and Matveev's mapping to the two-channel Kondo model in the vicinity of charge degeneracy point are also discussed.Comment: Lecture note to appear in Philosophical Magazin

Quantum Transport from the Perspective of Quantum Open Systems

By viewing the non-equilibrium transport setup as a quantum open system, we propose a reduced-density-matrix based quantum transport formalism. At the level of self-consistent Born approximation, it can precisely account for the correlation between tunneling and the system internal many-body interaction, leading to certain novel behavior such as the non-equilibrium Kondo effect. It also opens a new way to construct time-dependent density functional theory for transport through large-scale complex systems.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; the TDDFT scheme is explained in more detail in this new versio

Josephson current through a molecular transistor in a dissipative environment

We study the Josephson coupling between two superconductors through a single correlated molecular level, including Coulomb interaction on the level and coupling to a bosonic environment. All calculations are done to the lowest, i.e., the fourth, order in the tunneling coupling and we find a suppression of the supercurrent due to the combined effect of the Coulomb interaction and the coupling to environmental degrees of freedom. Both analytic and numerical results are presented.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B; v3: several misprints corrected - in particular, sign inconsistencies throughout the paper should be fixe

Theory for Decoupling in High-T_c Superconductors from an Analysis of the Layered XY Model with Frustration

The nature of decoupling in the mixed phase of extremely type-II layered superconductors is studied theoretically through a duality transformation of the layered XY model with frustration. In the limit of weak coupling, we generally find that the Josephson effect is absent if and only if the phase correlations within isolated layers are short range. In the case specific to uniform frustration, we notably identify a decoupled pancake vortex liquid phase that is bounded by first-order and second-order decoupling lines in the magnetic field vs. temperature plane. These transitions potentially account for the flux-lattice melting and for the flux-lattice depinning that is observed in clean high-temperature superconductors.Comment: 11 pgs. of Plain TeX, 1 postscript fig., based on a talk given at the VORTEX Euroconference held in Heraklion, Crete, Sept. 199

Quantum master equation scheme of time-dependent density functional theory to time-dependent transport in nano-electronic devices

In this work a practical scheme is developed for the first-principles study of time-dependent quantum transport. The basic idea is to combine the transport master-equation with the well-known time-dependent density functional theory. The key ingredients of this paper include: (i) the partitioning-free initial condition and the consideration of the time-dependent bias voltages which base our treatment on the Runge-Gross existence theorem; (ii) the non-Markovian master equation for the reduced (many-body) central system (i.e. the device); and (iii) the construction of Kohn-Sham master equation for the reduced single-particle density matrix, where a number of auxiliary functions are introduced and their equations of motion (EOM) are established based on the technique of spectral decomposition. As a result, starting with a well-defined initial state, the time-dependent transport current can be calculated simultaneously along the propagation of the Kohn-Sham master equation and the EOM of the auxiliary functions.Comment: 9 pages, no figure

Probing spin and orbital Kondo effects with a mesoscopic interferometer

We investigate theoretically the transport properties of a closed Aharonov-Bohm interferometer containing two quantum dots in the strong coupling regime. We find two distinct physical scenarios depending on the strength of the interdot Coulomb interaction. When the interdot Coulomb interaction is negligible only spin fluctuations are important and each dot develops a Kondo resonance at the Fermi level independently of the applied magnetic flux. The transport is characterized by the interference of these two independent Kondo resonances. On the contrary, for large interdot interaction, only one electron can be accommodated onto the double dot system. In this situation, not only the spin can fluctuate but also the orbital degree of freedom (the pseudo-spin). As a result, we find different ground states depending on the value of the applied flux. When $\phi=\pi$ (mod $2\pi$) ($\phi=2\pi\Phi/\Phi_0$, where $\Phi$ is applied flux, and $\Phi_0=h/e$ the flux quantum) the electronic transport can take place via simultaneous correlations in the spin and pseudo-spin sectors, leading to the highly symmetric SU(4) Kondo state. Nevertheless, we find situations with $\phi>0$ (mod $2\pi$) where the pseudo-spin quantum number is not conserved during tunneling events, giving rise to the common SU(2) Kondo state with an enhanced Kondo temperature. We investigate the crossover between both ground states and discuss possible experimental signatures of this physics as a function of the applied magnetic flux.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; extended discussions, improved presentatio

Comment on "T-dependence of the magnetic penetration depth in unconventional superconductors at low temperatures: Can it be linear?"

We show that the clean superconductor with line of gap nodes is not in conflict with the Nernst theorem. The answer to the question in the title of the Schopohl-Dolgov paper in Phys. Rev. Lett. 80 (1998) 4761 (cond-mat/9802264) is yes.Comment: Comment to the paper by Schopohl and Dolgov in Phys. Rev. Lett. 80 (1998) 4761 (cond-mat/9802264), RevTex file, 1 page, no figures, typos are corrected, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Tunneling exponents in realistic quantum wires using the mean field approximation

It is demonstrated that the charge Tomonaga-Luttinger parameter $K_\rho$ of quantum wires can be estimated accurately using the Hartree-Fock approximation if carried out self consistently. The dependence of $K_\rho$ on the carrier density distinguishes different regimes of importance of correlations

Resonant Josephson current through a quantum dot

We calculate the DC Josephson current through a semiconducting quantum dot which is weakly coupled by tunnel barriers to two superconducting reservoirs. A Breit-Wigner resonance in the conductance corresponds to a resonance in the critical current, but with a different (non-lorentzian) lineshape.Comment: 5 pages including 1 figure; this paper was published in the proceedings of SQUID'91; it is archived here because of its relevance to cond-mat/011148