Geometric phase of a two-level system in a dissipative environment

The geometric (Berry) phase of a two-level system in a dissipative environment is analyzed by using the second-quantized formulation, which provides a unified and gauge-invariant treatment of adiabatic and nonadiabatic phases and is thus applicable to a quantitative analysis of transitional regions away from ideal adiabaticity. In view of the recent experimental observation of the Berry phase in a superconducting qubit, we illustrate our formulation for a concrete adiabatic case in the Ohmic dissipation. The correction to the total phase together with the geometry-dependent dephasing time is given in a transparent way. The behavior of the geometric phase away from ideal adiabaticity is also analyzed in some detail.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Low energy exciton states in a nanoscopic semiconducting ring

We consider an effective mass model for an electron-hole pair in a simplified confinement potential, which is applicable to both a nanoscopic self-assembled semiconducting InAs ring and a quantum dot. The linear optical susceptibility, proportional to the absorption intensity of near-infrared transmission, is calculated as a function of the ring radius $$. Compared with the properties of the quantum dot corresponding to the model with a very small radius $R_0$, our results are in qualitative agreement with the recent experimental measurements by Pettersson {\it et al}.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revised and accepted by Phys. Rev.

Mesoscopic Kondo screening effect in a single-electron transistor embedded in a metallic ring

We study the Kondo screening effect generated by a single-electron transistor or quantum dot embedded in a small metallic ring. When the ring circumference $L$ becomes comparable to the fundamental length scale $\xi_K^0=\hbar \upsilon _F/T_K^0$ associated with the {\it bulk} Kondo tempe the Kondo resonance is strongly affected, depending on the total number of electrons ({\it modulo} 4) and magnetic flux threading the ring. The resulting Kondo-assisted persistent currents are also calculated in both Kondo and mixed valence regimes, and the maximum values are found in the crossover region.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, 6 figures, more references are include

Valence bond spin liquid state in two-dimensional frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets

Fermionic valence bond approach in terms of SU(4) representation is proposed to describe the $J_{1}-J_{2}$ frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnetic (AF) model on a {\it bipartite} square lattice. A uniform mean field solution without breaking the translational and rotational symmetries describes a valence bond spin liquid state, interpolating the two different AF ordered states in the large $J_{1}$ and large $J_{2}$ limits, respectively. This novel spin liquid state is gapless with the vanishing density of states at the Fermi nodal points. Moreover, a sharp resonance peak in the dynamic structure factor is predicted for momenta ${\bf q}=(0,0)$ and $(\pi ,\pi)$ in the strongly frustrated limit $J_{2}/J_{1}\sim 1/2$, which can be checked by neutron scattering experiment.Comment: Revtex file, 4 pages, 4 figure