119 research outputs found
Comment on "Magnetic response of Disordered Metallic Rings: Large Contributions of Far Levels"
Comment on cond-mat/0205390; PRL 90, 026805 (2003
Decoherence without dissipation?
In a recent article, Ford, Lewis and O'Connell (PRA 64, 032101 (2001))
discuss a thought experiment in which a Brownian particle is subjected to a
double-slit measurement. Analyzing the decay of the emerging interference
pattern, they derive a decoherence rate that is much faster than previous
results and even persists in the limit of vanishing dissipation. This result is
based on the definition of a certain attenuation factor, which they analyze for
short times. In this note, we point out that this attenuation factor captures
the physics of decoherence only for times larger than a certain time t_mix,
which is the time it takes until the two emerging wave packets begin to
overlap. Therefore, the strategy of Ford et al of extracting the decoherence
time from the regime t < t_mix is in our opinion not meaningful. If one
analyzes the attenuation factor for t > t_mix, one recovers familiar behaviour
for the decoherence time; in particular, no decoherence is seen in the absence
of dissipation. The latter conclusion is confirmed with a simple calculation of
the off-diagonal elements of the reduced density matrix.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
The Role of Vortices in the Mutual Coupling of Superconducting and Normal-Metal Films
I propose a possible explanation to a recently observed ``cross-talk'' effect
in metal-insulator-metal trilayers, indicating a sharp peak near a
superconducting transition in one of the metal films. Coulomb interactions are
excluded as a dominant coupling mechanism, and an alternative is suggested,
based on the local fluctuating electric field induced by mobile vortices in the
superconducting layer. This scenario is compatible with the magnitude of the
peak signal and its shape; most importantly, it addresses the {\it
non-reciprocity} of the effect in exchanging the roles of the films.Comment: 13 pages, RevTe
Diamagnetic orbital response of mesoscopic silver rings
We report measurements of the flux-dependent orbital magnetic susceptibility
of an ensemble of 10^5 disconnected silver rings at 217 MHz. Because of the
strong spin-orbit scattering rate in silver this experiment is a test of
existing theories on orbital magnetism. Below 100 mK the rings exhibit a
magnetic signal with a flux periodicity of h/2 e consistent with averaged
persistent currents, whose amplitude is estimated to be of the order of 0.3 nA.
The sign of the oscillations indicates diamagnetism in the vicinity of zero
magnetic field. This sign is not consistent with theoretical predictions for
average persistent currents unless considering attractive interactions in
silver. We propose an alternative interpretation taking into account spin orbit
scattering and finite frequency.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revtex4, accepted for publication in Physical
Review Letter
Tunnel junctions of unconventional superconductors
The phenomenology of Josephson tunnel junctions between unconventional
superconductors is developed further. In contrast to s-wave superconductors,
for d-wave superconductors the direction dependence of the tunnel matrix
elements that describe the barrier is relevant. We find the full I-V
characteristics and comment on the thermodynamical properties of these
junctions. They depend sensitively on the relative orientation of the
superconductors. The I-V characteristics differ from the normal s-wave RSJ-like
behavior.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, 4 (encapsulated postscript) figures (figures
replaced
Effect of Magnetic Impurities on Suppression of the Transition Temperature in Disordered Superconductors
We calculate the first-order perturbative correction to the transition
temperature in a superconductor with both non-magnetic and magnetic
impurities. We do this by first evaluating the correction to the effective
potential, , and then obtain the first-order correction to the
order parameter, , by finding the minimum of . Setting
finally allows to be evaluated. is now a function of
both the resistance per square, , a measure of the non-magnetic
disorder, and the spin-flip scattering rate, , a measure of the
magnetic disorder. We find that the effective pair-breaking rate per magnetic
impurity is virtually independent of the resistance per square of the film, in
agreement with an experiment of Chervenak and Valles. This conclusion is
supported by both the perturbative calculation, and by a non-perturbative
re-summation technique.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure
Electron-electron interactions in one- and three-dimensional mesoscopic disordered rings: a perturbative approach
We have computed persistent currents in a disordered mesoscopic ring in the
presence of small electron-electron interactions, treated in first order
perturbation theory. We have investigated both a contact (Hubbard) and a
nearest neighbour interaction in 1D and 3D. Our results show that a repulsive
Hubbard interaction produces a paramagnetic contribution to the average current
(whatever the dimension) and increases the value of the typical current. On the
other hand, a nearest neighbour repulsive interaction results in a diamagnetic
contribution in 1D and paramagnetic one in 3D, and tends to decrease the value
of the typical current in any dimension. Our study is based on numerical
simulations on the Anderson model and is justified analytically in the presence
of very weak disorder. We have also investigated the influence of the amount of
disorder and of the statistical (canonical or grand-canonical) ensemble.Comment: 7 pages in REVTEX, 4 figure
Landau diamagnetism and magnetization of interacting diffusive conductors
We show how the orbital magnetization of an interacting disordered diffusive
electron gas can be simply related to the magnetization of the non-interacting
system having the same geometry. This result is applied to the persistent
current of a mesoscopic ring and to the relation between Landau diamagnetism
and the interaction correction to the magnetization of diffusive systems. The
field dependence of this interaction contribution can be deduced directly from
the de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of the free electron gas. Known results for
the free orbital magnetism of finite systems can be used to derive the
interaction contribution in the diffusive regime in various geometries.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Vortex-unbinding and finite-size effects in Tl2Ba2CaCu2O8 thin films
Current-voltage (-) characteristics of TlBaCaCuO thin
films in zero magnetic field are measured and analyzed with the conventional
Kosterlitz-Thouless-Berezinskii (KTB) approach, dynamic scaling approach and
finite-size scaling approach, respectively. It is found from these results that
the - relation is determined by the vortex-unbinding mechanism with the
KTB dynamic critical exponent . On the other hand, the evidence of
finite-size effect is also found, which blurs the feature of a phase
transition.Comment: Typo corrected & reference adde
Plastic flow of persistent currents in two dimensional strongly interacting systems
The local persistent current in two dimensional strongly interacting systems
is investigated. As the interaction strength is enhanced the current in the
sample undergoes a transition from diffusive to ordered flow. The strong
interacting flow has the characteristics of a plastic flow through dislocations
in the pinned charge density wave which develops in the system at low
densities.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (RC
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