Quantum critical behaviour of the plateau-insulator transition in the quantum Hall regime

High-field magnetotransport experiments provide an excellent tool to investigate the plateau-insulator phase transition in the integral quantum Hall effect. Here we review recent low-temperature high-field magnetotransport studies carried out on several InGaAs/InP heterostructures and an InGaAs/GaAs quantum well. We find that the longitudinal resistivity $\rho_{xx}$ near the critical filling factor $\nu_{c}$ ~ 0.5 follows the universal scaling law $\rho_{xx}(\nu, T) \propto exp[-\Delta \nu/(T/T_{0})^{\kappa}]$, where $\Delta \nu =\nu -\nu_{c}$. The critical exponent $\kappa$ equals $0.56 \pm 0.02$, which indicates that the plateau-insulator transition falls in a non-Fermi liquid universality class.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Yamada Conference LX on Research in High Magnetic Fields (August 16-19, 2006, Sendai

Broken symmetry, hyper-fermions, and universal conductance in transport through a fractional quantum Hall edge

We have found solution to a model of tunneling between a multi-channel Fermi liquid reservoir and an edge of the principal fractional quantum Hall liquid (FQHL) in the strong coupling limit. The solution explains how the absence of the time-reversal symmetry at high energies due to chiral edge propagation makes the universal two-terminal conductance of the FQHL fractionally quantized and different from that of a 1D Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid wire, where a similar model but preserving the time-reversal symmetry predicts unsuppressed free-electron conductance.Comment: 5 twocolumn pages in RevTex, no figures, more explanations added, a short version was published in JETP Letters, vol.74, 87 (2001

Zero-Point Fluctuations and the Quenching of the Persistent Current in Normal Metal Rings

The ground state of a phase-coherent mesoscopic system is sensitive to its environment. We investigate the persistent current of a ring with a quantum dot which is capacitively coupled to an external circuit with a dissipative impedance. At zero temperature, zero-point quantum fluctuations lead to a strong suppression of the persistent current with decreasing external impedance. We emphasize the role of displacement currents in the dynamical fluctuations of the persistent current and show that with decreasing external impedance the fluctuations exceed the average persistent current.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figure

Is there a renormalization of the 1D conductance in Luttinger Liquid model?

Properties of 1D transport strongly depend on the proper choice of boundary conditions. It has been frequently stated that the Luttinger Liquid (LL) conductance is renormalized by the interaction as $g \frac{e^2} {h}$. To contest this result I develop a model of 1D LL wire with the interaction switching off at the infinities. Its solution shows that there is no renormalization of the universal conductance while the electrons have a free behavior in the source and drain reservoirs.Comment: 5 pages, RevTex 2.0, attempted repair of tex error

Interaction Constants and Dynamic Conductance of a Gated Wire

We show that the interaction constant governing the long-range electron-electron interaction in a quantum wire coupled to two reservoirs and capacitively coupled to a gate can be determined by a low frequency measurement. We present a self-consistent, charge and current conserving theory of the full conductance matrix. The collective excitation spectrum consists of plasma modes with a relaxation rate which increases with the interaction strength and is inversely proportional to the length of the wire. The interaction parameter is determined by the first two coefficients of the out-of-phase component of the dynamic conductance measured at the gate.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure

Negative local resistance caused by viscous electron backflow in graphene

Graphene hosts a unique electron system in which electron-phonon scattering is extremely weak but electron-electron collisions are sufficiently frequent to provide local equilibrium above liquid nitrogen temperature. Under these conditions, electrons can behave as a viscous liquid and exhibit hydrodynamic phenomena similar to classical liquids. Here we report strong evidence for this transport regime. We find that doped graphene exhibits an anomalous (negative) voltage drop near current injection contacts, which is attributed to the formation of submicrometer-size whirlpools in the electron flow. The viscosity of graphene's electron liquid is found to be ~0.1 m$^2$ /s, an order of magnitude larger than that of honey, in agreement with many-body theory. Our work shows a possibility to study electron hydrodynamics using high quality graphene