We analyze the spectrum of electron density oscillations in an interacting one-dimensional electron system with an impurity. The system's inhomogeneity is characterized by different values of Fermi wave vectors $k_F=k_{L/R}$ on left/right side of the scatterer, leading to a Landauer dipole formation. We demonstrate, that while in the noninteracting system the Friedel oscillations possess only one periodicity related to the local $k_F$, say $k_L$ on the left side, the interplay of the interactions and the Landauer dipole generates an additional peak in the spectrum of density oscillations at the counterpart $k_R$. Being only present in correlated systems, the position and shape of this spectral feature, which in coordinate space is observable as a beating pattern in the Friedel oscillations, reveals many important details about the nature of interactions. Thus it has a potential to become an investigation tool in condensed matter physics.
By exploiting our recently derived exact formula for the Lindhard polarization function in the presence of Bychkov-Rashba (BR) and Dresselhaus (D) spin-orbit interaction (SOI), we show that the interplay of different SOI mechanisms induces highly anisotropic modifications of the static dielectric function. We find that under certain circumstances the polarization function exhibits doubly-singular behavior, which leads to an intriguing novel phenomenon, beating of Friedel oscillations. This effect is a general feature of systems with BR+D SOI and should be observed in structures with a sufficie…
Elastic scattering in a quantum wire has several novel features not seen in 1D, 2D or 3D. In this work we consider a single channel quantum wire as its application is inevitable in making devices based on quantum interference effects. We consider a point defect or a single delta function impurity in such a wire and show how some of these novel features affect Friedel-sum-rule (FSR) in a way, that is quite unlike in 1D, 2D and 3D.
The Friedel oscillations caused due to an impurity located at one edge of a disordered interacting quantum wire are calculated numerically. The electron density in the system's ground state is determined using the DMRG method, and the Friedel oscillations data is extracted using the density difference between the case in which the wire is coupled to an impurity and the case where the impurity is uncoupled. We show that the power law decay of the oscillations occurring for an interacting clean 1D samples described by Luttinger liquid theory, is multiplied by an exponential decay term due to the…
The Friedel oscillations resulting from coupling a quantum dot to one edge of a disordered one-dimensional wire in the Mott insulator regime, are calculated numerically using the DMRG method. By investigating the influence of the disorder on the Friedel oscillations decay we find that the effect of disorder is reduced by increasing the interaction strength. This behavior is opposite to the recently reported influence of disorder in the Anderson insulator regime, where disorder led to a stronger decay of the Friedel oscillations.
At a Fano resonance in a quantum wire there is strong quantum mechanical back-scattering. When identical wave packets are incident along all possible modes of incidence, each wave packet is strongly scattered. The scattered wave packets compensate each other in such a way that the outgoing wave packets are similar to the incoming wave packets. This is as if the wave packets are not scattered and not dispersed. This typically happens for the kink-antikink solution of the Sine-Gordon model. As a result of such non-dispersive behavior, the derivation of semi-classical formulas like the Friedel su…
We investigate the role of charging effects in a voltage-biased quantum wire. Both the finite range of the Coulomb interaction and the long-ranged nature of the Friedel oscillation imply a finite capacitance, leading to a charging energy. While observable Coulomb blockade effects are absent for a single impurity, they are crucial if islands are present. For a double barrier, we give the resonance condition, fully taking into account the charging of the island.
We analyze the fermion density of the one-dimensional Hubbard model using bosonization and numerical DMRG calculations. For finite systems we find a relatively sharp crossover even for moderate short range interactions into a region with $4k_F$ density waves as a function of density. The results show that the unstable fixed point of a spin-incoherent state can dominate the physical behavior in a large region of parameter space in finite systems. The crossover may be observable in ultra cold fermionic gases in optical lattices and in finite quantum wires.
The transport properties of an interacting one-dimensional quantum dot capacitively coupled to an atomic force microscope probe are investigated. The dot is described within a Luttinger liquid framework which captures both Friedel and Wigner oscillations. In the linear regime, we demonstrate that both the conductance peak position and height oscillate as the tip is scanned along the dot. A pronounced beating pattern in the conductance maximum is observed, connected to the oscillations of the electron density. Signatures of the effects induced by a Wigner molecule are clearly identified and the…
The charge and spin patterns of a quantum dot embedded into a spin-orbit coupled quantum wire subject to a magnetic field are investigated. A Luttinger liquid theory is developed, taking into account open boundaries and finite magnetic field. In the quasi-helical regime, when spin-orbit effects dominate over the Zeeman interaction, peculiar states develop at the Fermi surface of the dot. Anomalous Friedel oscillations with twice the expected wavelength develop in the wavefunction of collective excitations of such states, accompanied by peculiar spin patterns in their magnetization. Both effect…
We analyze the spin- and charge-density oscillations near impurities in spin chains and quantum wires. These so-called Friedel oscillations give detailed information about the impurity and also about the interactions in the system. The temperature dependence of these oscillations explicitly shows the renormalization of backscattering and conductivity, which we analyze for a number of different impurity models. We are also able to analyze screening effects in one dimension. The relation to the Kondo effect and experimental consequences are discussed.
We study theoretically electronic transport through a contact of a quantum wire with 2D or 3D leads and find that if the contact is not smooth and adiabatic then the conduction is strongly suppressed below a threshold voltage $V_T$, while above $V_T$ the dc current $\bar I$ is accompanied by coherent oscillations of frequency $f=\bar I / e$. The effect is related to interelectronic repulsion and interaction of dc current with the Friedel oscillations near a sharp contact. In short conducting channels of length $L < L_0 \simeq \hbar v_F/eV_T$ and at high temperatures $T > T_0 \simeq eV_T/k_B$ t…
The evolution of quantum walk on a finite wire under a small increment of vector potential $α$ can exhibit intrinsic quantum oscillation of the two topologically protected bound states corresponding to the Majorana modes. By tuning an external electric field corresponding to the addition of an $α$ impulse at the end of each intrinsic period, the intrinsic oscillation is enveloped by a beat modulation with a longer period. This beat oscillation is useful in the preparation of decoherence-free qubit in trapped ion chain and may be observed in several experiments.
A single-channel quantum wire with two well-separated Zeeman subbands and in the presence of a weak spin-orbit coupling is considered. An impurity level which is split off the upper subband is degenerate with the continuum of the lower subband. We show that, when the Fermi level lies in the vicinity of the impurity level, the transport is completely blocked. This is the manifestation of the effect of resonant reflection and can be viewed as resonant tunneling between left-moving and right-moving electrons via the impurity level. We incorporate electron-electron interactions and study their eff…
We theoretically investigated two kinds of density oscillations: the Friedel oscillation and collective excitation in the silicene and germanene within random phase approximation, and found that the tunable spin-valley coupled band structure could lead to some exotic properties in such two phenomena. Based on the exact analytical and numerical analysis, we demonstrated that the beating of screened potential as well as the undamped plasmon mode can be taken as fingerprints of topological phase transition in doped silicene and doped germanene. Thus our proposal here establishes the connection be…
We study the electrostatic potential of a molecular wire bridging two metallic electrodes in the limit of weak contacts. With the use of a tight-binding model including a fully three-dimensional treatment of the electrostatics of the molecular junction, the potential is shown to be poorly screened, dropping mostly along the entire molecule. In addition, we observe pronounced Friedel oscillations that can be related to the breaking of electron-hole symmetry. Our results are in semi-quantitative agreement with recent state-of-the-art ab initio calculations and point to the need of a three-dimens…
In this dissertation we use sophisticated numerical methods in order to examine ground-state (GS) properties of two types of quantum systems with electron electron interactions: A quantum dot (QD) and a nano-wire. In the first half of the work we study a system of a single level coupled to a one-dimensional wire with interacting spinless electrons, when the wire is either clean or disordered. We utilize the density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) method to investigate the influence of the level on several thermodynamic properties of the clean interacting wire, which can be in one of two ph…
We investigate the distribution of the electron density and the potential in a quantum wire coupled to reservoirs, treating this structure as a unified quantum system and taking into account the Coulomb interaction of electrons. The chemical potential difference that exists between a decoupled, isolated quantum wire and the reservoirs gives rise to charge transfer in the coupled system. We show that the quantum wire can be charged positively or negatively or remain neutral as a whole, depending on such factors as the wire radius and the background charge density in the wire. The magnitude of t…
One-dimensional wires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, magnetic field, and strong electron-electron interactions are described by a spiral Luttinger liquid model. We develop a theory to investigate the tunneling density of states into a spiral Luttinger liquid under the proximity effect with superconductors. This approach provides a way to disentangle the delicate interplay between superconducting correlations and strong electron interactions. If the wire-superconductor boundary is dominated by Andreev reflection, we find that in the vicinity of the interface the zero-bias tunneling anomaly re…
We present analytical and numerical results for the electronic spectra of wires of a d-wave superconductor on a square lattice. The spectra of Andreev and other quasiparticle states, as well as the spatial and particle-hole structures of their wave functions, depend on interference effects caused by the presence of the surfaces and are qualitatively different for half-filled wires with even or odd number of chains. For half-filled wires with an odd number of chains N at (110) orientation, spectra consist of N doubly degenerate branches. By contrast, for even N wires, these levels are split, an…
In quantum wires, the hyperfine coupling between conduction electrons and nuclear spins can lead to a (partial) ordering of both of them at low temperatures. By an interaction-enhanced mechanism, the nuclear spin order, caused by RKKY exchange, acts back onto the electrons and gaps out part of their spectrum. In wires with two subbands characterized by distinct Fermi momenta kF1 and kF2, the nuclear spins form a superposition of two helices with pitches π/kF1 and π/kF2, thus exhibiting a beating pattern. This order results in a reduction of the electronic conductance in two steps upon lowering…
We investigate transport properties of a superconducting junction of many ($N \ge 2$) one-dimensional quantum wires. We include the effectofelectron-electron interaction within the one-dimensional quantum wire using a weak interaction renormalization group procedure. Due to the proximity effect, transport across the junction occurs via direct tunneling as well as via the crossed Andreev channel. We find that the fixed point structure of this system is far more rich than the fixed point structure of a normal metal$-$superconductor junction ($N = 1$), where we only have two fixed points - the fu…
The electron transport in a 1D conductor with an isolated local defect such as an impurity or a non-adiabatic contact is studied theoretically. New regime of conduction in correlated 1D systems is predicted beyond the well-known regime of tunneling resulting in the power-law I-V-curves. In this regime a quantum wire becomes "opened" at voltage biases above the threshold value $V_T$, giving rise to a rapid increase of the dc current, $\bar I$, accompanied by ac oscillations of frequency $f = \bar I/e$. The effect of ac generation is related to sliding of the Friedel oscillations of electronic d…
