109 research outputs found
Kinetic energy density functionals from the Airy gas, with an application to the atomization kinetic energies of molecules
We construct and study several semilocal density functional approximations
for the positive Kohn-Sham kinetic energy density. These functionals fit the
kinetic energy density of the Airy gas and they can be accurate for integrated
kinetic energies of atoms, molecules, jellium clusters and jellium surfaces. We
find that these functionals are the most accurate ones for atomization kinetic
energies of molecules and for fragmentation of jellium clusters. We also report
that local and semilocal kinetic energy functionals can show "binding" when the
density of a spin unrestricted Kohn-Sham calculation is used.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
Towards an Explanation of the Mesoscopic Double-Slit Experiment: a new model for charging of a Quantum Dot
For a quantum dot (QD) in the intermediate regime between integrable and
fully chaotic, the widths of single-particle levels naturally differ by orders
of magnitude. In particular, the width of one strongly coupled level may be
larger than the spacing between other, very narrow, levels. In this case many
consecutive Coulomb blockade peaks are due to occupation of the same broad
level. Between the peaks the electron jumps from this level to one of the
narrow levels and the transmission through the dot at the next resonance
essentially repeats that at the previous one. This offers a natural explanation
to the recently observed behavior of the transmission phase in an
interferometer with a QD.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Journal versio
Aharonov-Bohm Interferometry with Interacting Quantum Dots: Spin Configurations, Asymmetric Interference Patterns, Bias-Voltage-Induced Aharonov-Bohm Oscillations, and Symmetries of Transport Coefficients
We study electron transport through multiply-connected mesoscopic geometries
containing interacting quantum dots. Our formulation covers both equilibrium
and non-equilibrium physics. We discuss the relation of coherent transport
channels through the quantum dot to flux-sensitive Aharonov-Bohm oscillations
in the total conductance of the device. Contributions to transport in first and
second order in the intrinsic line width of the dot levels are addressed in
detail. We predict an interaction-induced asymmetry in the amplitude of the
interference signal around resonance peaks as a consequence of incoherence
associated with spin-flip processes. This asymmetry can be used to probe the
total spin of the quantum dot. Such a probe requires less stringent
experimental conditions than the Kondo effect, which provides the same
information. We show that first-order contributions can be partially or even
fully coherent. This contrasts with the sequential-tunneling picture, which
describes first-order transport as a sequence of incoherent tunneling
processes. We predict bias-voltage induced Aharonov-Bohm oscillations of
physical quantities which are independent of flux in the linear-response
regime. Going beyond the Onsager relations we analyze the relations between the
space symmetry group of the setup and the flux-dependent non-linear
conductance.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure
Spin Effects and Transport in Quantum Dots with overlapping Resonances
The role of spin is investigated in the transport through a quantum dot with
two overlapping resonances (one having a width larger than the level separation
and the other very narrow, cf. Silvestrov and Imry, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 85},
2565 (2000)). For a series of consecutive charging resonances, one electron
from the leads populates one and the same broad level in the dot. Moreover,
there is the tendency to occupy the same level also by the second electron
within the same resonance. This second electron is taken from the narrow levels
in the dot. The narrow levels are populated (and broad level is depopulated)
via sharp rearrangements of the electronic configuration in the Coulomb
blockade valleys. Possible experimental manifestations of this scenario are
considered. Among these there are sharp features in the valleys and in the
Mixed Valence regime and an unusual Kondo effect.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, just a published versio
Quantum characterization of superconducting photon counters
We address the quantum characterization of photon counters based on
transition-edge sensors (TESs) and present the first experimental tomography of
the positive operator-valued measure (POVM) of a TES. We provide the reliable
tomographic reconstruction of the POVM elements up to 11 detected photons and
M=100 incoming photons, demonstrating that it is a linear detector.Comment: 3 figures, NJP (to appear
Laplacian-level density functionals for the kinetic energy density and exchange-correlation energy
We construct a Laplacian-level meta-generalized gradient approximation
(meta-GGA) for the non-interacting (Kohn-Sham orbital) positive kinetic energy
density of an electronic ground state of density . This meta-GGA is
designed to recover the fourth-order gradient expansion in the
appropiate slowly-varying limit and the von Weizs\"{a}cker expression
in the rapidly-varying limit. It is constrained to
satisfy the rigorous lower bound .
Our meta-GGA is typically a strong improvement over the gradient expansion of
for atoms, spherical jellium clusters, jellium surfaces, the Airy gas,
Hooke's atom, one-electron Gaussian density, quasi-two dimensional electron
gas, and nonuniformly-scaled hydrogen atom. We also construct a Laplacian-level
meta-GGA for exchange and correlation by employing our approximate in
the Tao, Perdew, Staroverov and Scuseria (TPSS) meta-GGA density functional.
The Laplacian-level TPSS gives almost the same exchange-correlation enhancement
factors and energies as the full TPSS, suggesting that and
carry about the same information beyond that carried by and . Our
kinetic energy density integrates to an orbital-free kinetic energy functional
that is about as accurate as the fourth-order gradient expansion for many real
densities (with noticeable improvement in molecular atomization energies), but
considerably more accurate for rapidly-varying ones.Comment: 9 pages, 16 figure
Correlations in the cotunneling regime of a quantum dot
Off-resonance conductance through weakly coupled quantum dots ("valley
conductance") is governed by cotunneling processes in which a large number of
dot states participate. Virtually the same states participate in the transport
at consecutive valleys, which leads to significant valley-valley conductance
correlations. These correlations are calculated within the constant interaction
model. Comparison with experiment shows that these correlations are less robust
in reality. Among the possible reasons for this is the breakdown of the
constant interaction model, accompanied by "scrambling" of the dot as the
particle number is varied.Comment: 10 pages, 4 eps-figures; reference adde
Transmission phase lapses in quantum dots: the role of dot-lead coupling asymmetry
Lapses of transmission phase in transport through quantum dots are ubiquitous
already in the absence of interaction, in which case their precise location is
determined by the signs and magnitudes of the tunnelling matrix elements.
However, actual measurements for a quantum dot embedded in an Aharonov-Bohm
interferometer show systematic sequences of phase lapses separated by Coulomb
peaks -- an issue that attracted much attention and generated controversy.
Using a two-level quantum dot as an example we show that this phenomenon can be
accounted for by the combined effect of asymmetric dot-lead couplings (left
lead/right lead asymmetry as well as different level broadening for different
levels) and interaction-induced "population switching" of the levels, rendering
this behaviour generic. We construct and analyse a mean field scheme for an
interacting quantum dot, and investigate the properties of the mean field
solution, paying special attention to the character of its dependence
(continuous vs. discontinuous) on the chemical potential or gate voltage.Comment: 34 LaTeX pages in IOP format, 9 figures; misprints correcte
The low-energy theory for the Bose-Hubbard model and the normal ground state of bosons
A bosonic realization of the SU(2) Lie algebra and of its vector
representation is constructed, and an effective low-energy description of the
Bose-Hubbard model in the form of anisotropic theory of quantum rotors is
proposed and discussed. A possibility of a normal zero-temperature bosonic
phase with neither crystalline nor superfluid order around the tip of the
checkerboard-solid lobe at half-integer fillings is examined.Comment: 8 pages, LaTex, one postscript figur
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