Heat transport through quantum Hall edge states: Tunneling versus capacitive coupling to reservoirs

We study the heat transport along an edge state of a two-dimensional electron gas in the quantum Hall regime, in contact to two reservoirs at different temperatures. We consider two exactly solvable models for the edge state coupled to the reservoirs. The first one corresponds to filling $\nu=1$ and tunneling coupling to the reservoirs. The second one corresponds to integer or fractional filling of the sequence $\nu=1/m$ (with $m$ odd), and capacitive coupling to the reservoirs. In both cases we solve the problem by means of non-equilibrium Green function formalism. We show that heat propagates chirally along the edge in the two setups. We identify two temperature regimes, defined by $\Delta$, the mean level spacing of the edge. At low temperatures, $T< \Delta$, finite size effects play an important role in heat transport, for both types of contacts. The nature of the contacts manifest themselves in different power laws for the thermal conductance as a function of the temperature. For capacitive couplings a highly non-universal behavior takes place, through a prefactor that depends on the length of the edge as well as on the coupling strengths and the filling fraction. For larger temperatures, $T>\Delta$, finite-size effects become irrelevant, but the heat transport strongly depends on the strength of the edge-reservoir interactions, in both cases. The thermal conductance for tunneling coupling grows linearly with $T$, whereas for the capacitive case it saturates to a value that depends on the coupling strengths and the filling factors of the edge and the contacts.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Microscopic model of a phononic refrigerator

We analyze a simple microscopic model to pump heat from a cold to a hot reservoir in a nanomechanical system. The model consists of a one-dimensional chain of masses and springs coupled to a back gate through which a time-dependent perturbation is applied. The action of the gate is to modulate the coupling of the masses to a substrate via additional springs that introduce a moving phononic barrier. We solve the problem numerically using non-equilibrium Green function techniques. For low driving frequencies and for sharp traveling barriers, we show that this microscopic model realizes a phonon refrigerator.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Microscopic theory of vibronic dynamics in linear polyenes

We propose a novel approach to calculate dynamical processes at ultrafast time scale in molecules in which vibrational and electronic motions are strongly mixed. The relevant electronic orbitals and their interactions are described by a Hubbard model, while electron-phonon interaction terms account for the bond length dependence of the hopping and the change in ionic radii with valence charge. The latter term plays a crucial role in the non-adiabatic internal conversion process of the molecule. The time resolved photoelectron spectra are in good qualitative agreement with experiments.Comment: 3 figures, other comment

Melting transition of an Ising glass driven by magnetic field

The quantum critical behavior of the Ising glass in a magnetic field is investigated. We focus on the spin glass to paramagnet transition of the transverse degrees of freedom in the presence of finite longitudinal field. We use two complementary techniques, the Landau theory close to the T=0 transition and the exact diagonalization method for finite systems. This allows us to estimate the size of the critical region and characterize various crossover regimes. An unexpectedly small energy scale on the disordered side of the critical line is found, and its possible relevance to experiments on metallic glasses is briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Triplet superconductivity in quasi one-dimensional systems

We study a Hubbard hamiltonian, including a quite general nearest-neighbor interaction, parametrized by repulsion V, exchange interactions Jz, Jperp, bond-charge interaction X and hopping of pairs W. The case of correlated hopping, in which the hopping between nearest neighbors depends upon the occupation of the two sites involved, is also described by the model for sufficiently weak interactions. We study the model in one dimension with usual continuum-limit field theory techniques, and determine the phase diagram. For arbitrary filling, we find a very simple necessary condition for the existence of dominant triplet superconducting correlations at large distance in the spin SU(2) symmetric case: 4V+J<0. In the correlated hopping model, the three-body interaction should be negative for positive V. We also compare the predictions of this weak-coupling treatment with numerical exact results for the correlated-hopping model obtained by diagonalizing small chains, and using novel techniques to determine the opening of the spin gap.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Quantum pump effect in one-dimensional systems of Dirac fermions

We investigate the behavior of the directed current in one-dimensional systems of Dirac fermions driven by local periodic potentials in the forward as well in backscattering channels. We treat the problem with Keldysh non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. We present the exact solution for the case of an infinite wire and show that in this case the dc current vanishes identically. We also investigate a confined system consistent in an annular arrangement coupled to a particle reservoir. We present a perturbative treatment that allows for the analytical expressions of the dc current in the lowest order of the amplitudes of the potential. We also present results obtained from the exact numerical solution of the problem.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Stationary transport in mesoscopic hybrid structures with contacts to superconducting and normal wires. A Green's function approach for multiterminal setups

We generalize the representation of the real time Green's functions introduced by Langreth and Nordlander [Phys. Rev. B 43 2541 (1991)] and Meir and Wingreen [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 2512 (1992)] in stationary quantum transport in order to study problems with hybrid structures containing normal (N) and superconducting (S) pieces. We illustrate the treatment in a S-N junction under a stationary bias and investigate in detail the behavior of the equilibrium currents in a normal ring threaded by a magnetic flux with attached superconducting wires at equilibrium. We analyze the flux sensitivity of the Andreev states and we show that their response is equivalent to the one corresponding to the Cooper pairs with momentum q=0 in an isolated superconducting ring.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

The infinite-range quantum random Heisenberg magnet

We study with exact diagonalization techniques the Heisenberg model for a system of SU(2) spins with S=1/2 and random infinite-range exchange interactions. We calculate the critical temperature T_g for the spin-glass to paramagnetic transition. We obtain T_g ~ 0.13, in good agreement with previous quantum Monte Carlo and analytical estimates. We provide a detailed picture for the different kind of excitations which intervene in the dynamical response chi''(w,T) at T=0 and analyze their evolution as T increases. We also calculate the specific heat Cv(T). We find that it displays a smooth maximum at TM ~ 0.25, in good qualitative agreement with experiments. We argue that the fact that TM>Tg is due to a quantum disorder effect.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figure