128 research outputs found
Observation of Quantum Hall Valley Skyrmions
We report measurements of the interaction-induced quantum Hall effect in a
spin-polarized AlAs two-dimensional electron system where the electrons occupy
two in-plane conduction band valleys. Via the application of in-plane strain,
we tune the energies of these valleys and measure the energy gap of the quantum
Hall state at filling factor = 1. The gap has a finite value even at zero
strain and, with strain, rises much faster than expected from a single-particle
picture, suggesting that the lowest energy charged excitations at are
"valley Skyrmions".Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Superconductivity of Quasi-One-Dimensional Electrons in Strong Magnetic Field
The superconductivity of quasi-one-dimensional electrons in the magnetic
field is studied. The system is described as the one-dimensional electrons with
no frustration due to the magnetic field. The interaction is assumed to be
attractive between electrons in the nearest chains, which corresponds to the
lines of nodes of the energy gap in the absence of the magnetic field. The
effective interaction depends on the magnetic field and the transverse
momentum. As the magnetic field becomes strong, the transition temperature of
the spin-triplet superconductivity oscillates, while that of the spin-singlet
increases monotonically.Comment: 15 pages, RevTeX, 3 PostScript figures in uuencoded compressed tar
file are appende
Condensate fluctuations of a trapped, ideal Bose gas
For a non-self-interacting Bose gas with a fixed, large number of particles
confined to a trap, as the ground state occupation becomes macroscopic, the
condensate number fluctuations remain micrscopic. However, this is the only
significant aspect in which the grand canonical description differs from
canonical or microcanonical in the thermodynamic limit. General arguments and
estimates including some vanishingly small quantities are compared to explicit,
fixed-number calculations for 10^2 to 10^6 particles.Comment: 16 pages (REVTeX) plus 4 figures (ps), revision includes brief
comparison of repulsive-interaction vs. fixed-N fluctuation damping. To be
published in Phys. Rev.
Upper Critical Field in a Spin-Charge Separated Superconductor
It is demonstrated that the spatial decay of the pair propagator in a
Luttinger liquid with spin charge separation contains a logarithmic correction
relative to the free fermi gas result in a finite interval between the spin and
charge thermal lengths. It is argued that similar effects can be expected in
higher dimensional systems with spin charge separation and that the temperature
dependence of the upper critical field curve is a probe of this
effect.Comment: 3 pages, postscript file (compressed and uuencoded
Two-dimensional limit of exchange-correlation energy functional approximations in density functional theory
We investigate the behavior of three-dimensional (3D) exchange-correlation
energy functional approximations of density functional theory in anisotropic
systems with two-dimensional (2D) character. Using two simple models, quasi-2D
electron gas and two-electron quantum dot, we show a {\it fundamental
limitation} of the local density approximation (LDA), and its semi-local
extensions, generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and meta-GGA (MGGA), the
most widely used forms of which are worse than the LDA in the strong 2D limit.
The origin of these shortcomings is in the inability of the local (LDA) and
semi-local (GGA/MGGA) approximations to describe systems with 2D character in
which the nature of the exchange-correlation hole is very nonlocal. Nonlocal
functionals provide an alternative approach, and explicitly the average density
approximation (ADA) is shown to be remarkably accurate for the quasi-2D
electron gas system. Our study is not only relevant for understanding of the
functionals but also practical applications to semiconductor quantum structures
and materials such as graphite and metal surfaces. We also comment on the
implication of our findings to the practical device simulations based on the
(semi-)local density functional method.Comment: 21 pages including 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
SU(N) Quantum Hall Skyrmions
We have investigated skyrmions in N-component quantum Hall systems. We find
that SU(N) skyrmions are the lowest energy charged excitations for filling
factors \nu = 1,2,...,N-1 for small enough symmetry breaking terms. N>2
skyrmions can be realized in Si QH systems based on the (110) or (111)
interfaces of Si, or perhaps in Si (100) systems, where the spin and valley
isospin together provide an SU(4)-symmetry, or in multilayer QH systems. We
also present Hartree-Fock results for a phenomenological easy-axis
SU(2)-breaking model appropriate to valley degeneracy.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Valley degeneracy in biaxially strained aluminum arsenide quantum wells
This paper details a complete formalism for calculating electron subband
energy and degeneracy in strained multi-valley quantum wells grown along any
orientation with explicit results for the AlAs quantum well case. A
standardized rotation matrix is defined to transform from the conventional-
cubic-cell basis to the quantum-well-transport basis whereby effective mass
tensors, valley vectors, strain matrices, anisotropic strain ratios, and
scattering vectors are all defined in their respective bases. The specific
cases of (001)-, (110)-, and (111)-oriented aluminum arsenide (AlAs) quantum
wells are examined, as is the unconventional (411) facet, which is of
particular importance in AlAs literature. Calculations of electron confinement
and strain in the (001), (110), and (411) facets determine the critical well
width for crossover from double- to single-valley degeneracy in each system.
The notation is generalized to include miscut angles, and can be adapted to
other multi-valley systems. To help classify anisotropic inter-valley
scattering events, a new primitive unit cell is defined in momentum space which
allows one to distinguish purely in-plane inter-valley scattering events from
those that requires an out-of-plane momentum scattering component.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
Gap Anisotropy and de Haas-van Alphen Effect in Type-II Superconductors
We present a theoretical study on the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) oscillation
in the vortex state of type-II superconductors, with a special focus on the
connection between the gap anisotropy and the oscillation damping. Numerical
calculations for three different gap structures clearly indicate that the
average gap along extremal orbits is relevant for the magnitude of the extra
damping, thereby providing a support for experimental efforts to probe gap
anisotropy through the dHvA signal. We also derive an analytic formula for the
extra damping which gives a good fit to the numerical results.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, changes in Introductio
Mixed-State Quasiparticle Spectrum for d-wave Superconductors
Controversy concerning the pairing symmetry of high- materials has
motivated an interest in those measurable properties of superconductors for
which qualitative differences exist between the s-wave and d-wave cases. We
report on a comparison between the microscopic electronic properties of d-wave
and s-wave superconductors in the mixed state. Our study is based on
self-consistent numerical solutions of the mean-field Bogoliubov-de Gennes
equations for phenomenological BCS models which have s-wave and d-wave
condensates in the absence of a magnetic field. We discuss differences between
the s-wave and the d-wave local density-of-states, both near and away from
vortex cores. Experimental implications for both scanning-tunneling-microscopy
measurements and specific heat measurements are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, REVTEX3.0, 3 figures available upon reques
Current-Carrying Ground States in Mesoscopic and Macroscopic Systems
We extend a theorem of Bloch, which concerns the net orbital current carried
by an interacting electron system in equilibrium, to include mesoscopic
effects. We obtain a rigorous upper bound to the allowed ground-state current
in a ring or disc, for an interacting electron system in the presence of static
but otherwise arbitrary electric and magnetic fields. We also investigate the
effects of spin-orbit and current-current interactions on the upper bound.
Current-current interactions, caused by the magnetic field produced at a point
r by a moving electron at r, are found to reduce the upper bound by an amount
that is determined by the self-inductance of the system. A solvable model of an
electron system that includes current-current interactions is shown to realize
our upper bound, and the upper bound is compared with measurements of the
persistent current in a single ring.Comment: 7 pager, Revtex, 1 figure available from [email protected]
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