Transport through a vibrating quantum dot: Polaronic effects

We present a Green's function based treatment of the effects of electron-phonon coupling on transport through a molecular quantum dot in the quantum limit. Thereby we combine an incomplete variational Lang-Firsov approach with a perturbative calculation of the electron-phonon self energy in the framework of generalised Matsubara Green functions and a Landauer-type transport description. Calculating the ground-state energy, the dot single-particle spectral function and the linear conductance at finite carrier density, we study the low-temperature transport properties of the vibrating quantum dot sandwiched between metallic leads in the whole electron-phonon coupling strength regime. We discuss corrections to the concept of an anti-adiabatic dot polaron and show how a deformable quantum dot can act as a molecular switch.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Proceedings of "Progress in Nonequilibrium Green's Function IV" Conference, Glasgow 200

Carrier-density effects in many-polaron systems

Many-polaron systems with finite charge-carrier density are often encountered experimentally. However, until recently, no satisfactory theoretical description of these systems was available even in the framework of simple models such as the one-dimensional spinless Holstein model considered here. In this work, previous results obtained using numerical as well as analytical approaches are reviewed from a unified perspective, focussing on spectral properties which reveal the nature of the quasiparticles in the system. In the adiabatic regime and for intermediate electron-phonon coupling, a carrier-density driven crossover from a polaronic to a rather metallic system takes place. Further insight into the effects due to changes in density is gained by calculating the phonon spectral function, and the fermion-fermion and fermion-lattice correlation functions. Finally, we provide strong evidence against the possibility of phase separation.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter; final versio

Two electrons on a hypersphere: a quasi-exactly solvable model

We show that the exact wave function for two electrons, interacting through a Coulomb potential but constrained to remain on the surface of a $\mathcal{D}$-sphere ($\mathcal{D} \ge 1$), is a polynomial in the interelectronic distance $u$ for a countably infinite set of values of the radius $R$. A selection of these radii, and the associated energies, are reported for ground and excited states on the singlet and triplet manifolds. We conclude that the $\mathcal{D}=3$ model bears the greatest similarity to normal physical systems.Comment: 4 pages, 0 figur