The conductance of two Anderson impurity models, one with two-fold and another with four-fold degeneracy, representing two types of quantum dots, is calculated using a world-line quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method. Extrapolation of the imaginary time QMC data to zero frequency yields the linear conductance, which is then compared to numerical renormalization group results in order to assess its accuracy. We find that the method gives excellent results at low temperature (T<Tk) throughout the mixed valence and Kondo regimes, but it is unreliable for higher temperature.
Transport in an ideal two-dimensional quantum spin Hall device is dominated by the counterpropagating edge states of electrons with opposite spins, giving the universal value of the conductance, $2e^2/h$. We study the effect on the conductance of a magnetic impurity, which can backscatter an electron from one edge state to the other. In the case of isotropic Kondo exchange we find that the correction to the electrical conductance caused by such an impurity vanishes in the dc limit, while the thermal conductance does acquire a finite correction due to the spin-flip backscattering.
It is well known that while forward scattering has no effect on the conductance of one-dimensional systems, backscattering off a static impurity suppresses the current. We study the effect of a time-dependent point impurity on the conductance of a one-channel quantum wire. At strong repulsive interaction (Luttinger liquid parameter g<1/2), backscattering renders the linear conductance greater than its value e^2/h in the absence of the impurity. A possible experimental realization of our model is a constricted quantum wire or a constricted Hall bar at fractional filling factors nu=1/(2n+1) with…
We use the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism along with a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation to numerically study the effects of a single impurity and interactions between the electrons (with and without spin) on the conductance of a quantum wire. We study how the conductance varies with the wire length, the temperature, and the strength of the impurity and interactions. The dependence of the conductance on the wire length and temperature is found to be in rough agreement with the results obtained from a renormalization group analysis based on the Hartree-Fock approximation. F…
An exact relation between the conductance maximum $G_0$ at zero temperature and a ratio of lead densities is derived within the framework of the single impurity Anderson model: $G_0={\mathfrak R}[n] \frac{2e^2}{h}$, where ${\mathfrak R}[n]=4ΔN_{{\cal L},x} ΔN_{{\cal R},x}/(ΔN_{{\cal L},x}+ΔN_{{\cal R},x})^2$ and $ΔN_{{\cal L},x}$, $ΔN_{{\cal R},x}$ denote the excess density in the left/right lead at distance $x$ due to the presence of the impurity at the origin, $x=0$. The relation constitutes a parameter-free expression of the conductance of the model in terms of the ground state density that…
It is well known that while forward scattering has no effect on the conductance of one-dimensional systems, backscattering off a static impurity suppresses the current. We study the effect of a time-dependent point impurity on the conductance of a one-channel quantum wire. At strong repulsive interaction (Luttinger liquid parameter g<1/2), backscattering renders the conductance greater than its value e^2/h in the absence of the impurity. A possible experimental realization of our model is a constricted Hall bar at fractional filling factors ν=1/(2n+1) with a time-dependent voltage at the const…
We investigate the nonequilibrum transport properties of a quantum dot when spin flip processes compete with the formation of a Kondo resonance in the presence of ferromagnetic leads. Based upon the Anderson Hamiltonian in the strongly interacting limit, we predict a splitting of the differential conductance when the spin flip scattering amplitude is of the order of the Kondo temperature. We discuss how the relative orientation of the lead magnetizations strongly influences the electronic current and the shot noise in a nontrivial way. Furthermore, we find that the zero-bias tunneling magnetor…
We report a detailed analytic investigation of the interplay between size quantization and local scattering centers in armchair graphene nanoribbons, as seen in the conductance. The scattering property of a local scattering center is dependent on if it is located on one sublattice (A-site impurity) or both (impurity situated at neighboring carbon atoms, A-B-site impurity). The A-site impurity scatters in a similar way as a localized impurity in a one-dimensional channel made from a two-dimensional electron gas. On the other hand, the A-B-site impurity introduces A- to B-sublattice scattering, …
We investigate transport through a single impurity in metallic zigzag carbon nanotube and find the conductance sensitively depends on the impurity strength and the bias voltage. It is rather interesting that interplay between the current-carrying scattering state and evanescent modes leads to rich phenomena including resonant backward scattering, perfect tunneling and charge accumulations. In addition, we also find a dual relation between the backscattered conductance and the charge accumulation. At the end, relevance to the experiments is discussed.
We calculate the AC conductance and the finite-frequency non-symmetrized noise in interacting quantum wires and single-wall carbon nanotubes in the presence of an impurity. We observe a strong asymmetry in the frequency spectrum of the non-symmetrized excess noise, even in the presence of the metallic leads. We find that this asymmetry is proportional to the differential excess AC conductance of the system, defined as the difference between the AC differential conductances at finite and zero voltage, and thus disappears for a linear system. In the quantum regime, for temperatures much smaller …
We calculate the spin-dependent zero-bias conductance $G_{σσ'}$ in armchair graphene nanoribbons with hydrogen adsorbates employing a DFT-based ab initio transport formalism including spin-orbit interaction. We find that the spin-flip conductance $G_{σ\barσ}$ can reach the same order of magnitude as the spin-conserving one, $G_{σσ}$, due to exchange-mediated spin scattering. In contrast, the genuine spin-orbit interaction appears to play a secondary role, only.
The combined effect of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions on the physics of a helical Luttinger liquid coupled to a Kondo impurity is studied. A Rashba coupling can potentially destroy the Kondo singlet formation in certain parameter regimes [Phys. Rev. B 86, 161103(R) (2012)]. This effect is here shown to vanish for sufficiently strong Dresselhaus interaction. The transport properties of the system are investigated by calculating electrical conductance, current and current fluctuations, and thermal conductance.
We study the impact of dynamical correlations on the electronic structure and coherent transport properties of Cu nanocontacts hosting a single magnetic impurity (Ni,Co,Fe) in the contact region. The strong dynamical correlations of the impurity 3d-electrons are fully taken into account by combining density functional calculations with a dynamical treatment of the impurity 3d-shell in the one-crossing approximation. We find that dynamical correlations give rise to the Kondo effect and lead to Fano features in the coherent transport characteristics similar to those observed in related experimen…
We study non-equilibrium electron transport through a quantum impurity coupled to metallic leads using the equation of motion technique at finite temperature T. Assuming that the interactions are taking place solely in the impurity and focusing in the infinite Hubbard limit, we compute the out of equilibrium density of states and the differential conductance G_2(T,V) to test several scaling laws. We find that G_2(T,V)/G_2(T,0) is a universal function of both eV/T_K and T/T_K, being T_K the Kondo temperature. The effect of an in plane magnetic field on the splitting of the zero bias anomaly in …
The nonlinear conductance observed in a quantum point contact is theoretically reproduced for the entire range of applied bias. The single-impurity Anderson model with two reservoirs at different chemical potentials is studied for a sequential change of the gate voltage. The imbalance in the left and right Kondo coupling strength is introduced by the displacement of the Kondo impurity by the electric field produced in the constriction of quantum point contact. We reveal the origin of the side peaks and study the behavior of the height and width of the zero-bias anomaly.
We study the steady-state dc transport characteristics of a system comprised of an interacting quantum dot, modelled as an Anderson impurity, coupled to two metallic non-interacting leads with Rashba SOC, using an interpolative perturbative approach (IPA). The single-particle spectra, current and differential conductance are obtained in weak and strong coupling regimes over a wide range of SOC and bias values. Extensive benchmarking of the IPA validates the method in the linear as well as non-linear response regime. The universal, zero bias ($V_{sd}=0$) peak with a width proportional to the Ko…
Motivated by recent experiments we consider transport across an interacting magnetic impurity coupled to the Majorana zero mode (MZM) observed at the boundary of a topological superconductor (SC). In the presence of a finite tunneling amplitude we observe hybridization of the MZM with the quantum dot, which is manifested by a half-integer zero-bias conductance $G_0=e^2/2h$ measured on the metallic contacts. The low-energy feature in the conductance drops abruptly by crossing the transition line from the topological to the non-topological superconducting regime. Differently from the in-gap Yu-S…
We report on the formation of critical states in disordered graphene, at the origin of variable and unconventional transport properties in the quantum Hall regime, such as a zero-energy Hall conductance plateau in the absence of an energy bandgap and Landau level degeneracy breaking. By using efficient real-space transport methodologies, we compute both the dissipative and Hall conductivities of large size graphene sheets with random distribution of model single and double vacancies. By analyzing the scaling of transport coefficients with defect density, system size and magnetic length, we elu…
The scaling properties of the conductance of a Kondo impurity connected to two leads that are in or out of equilibrium has been extensively studied, both experimentally and theoretically. From these studies, a consensus has emerged regarding the analytic expression of the scaling function. The question addressed in this brief report concerns the properties of the experimentally measurable coefficient $α$ present in the term describing the leading dependence of the conductance on $eV/T_K$, where $V$ is the source-drain voltage and $T_K$ the Kondo temperature. We study the dependence of $α$ on t…
We analyze the one-dimensional extended Hubbard model with a single static impurity by using a computational technique based on the functional renormalization group. This extends previous work for spinless fermions to spin-1/2 fermions. The underlying approximations are devised for weak interactions and arbitrary impurity strengths, and have been checked by comparing with density-matrix renormalization-group data. We present results for the density of states, the density profile and the linear conductance. Two-particle backscattering leads to striking effects, which are not captured if the bul…
We extend the recently developed real-time Diagrammatic Monte Carlo method, in its hybridization expansion formulation, to the full Kadanoff-Baym-Keldysh contour. This allows us to study real-time dynamics in correlated impurity models starting from an arbitrary, even interacting, initial density matrix. As a proof of concept we apply the algorithm to study the non equilibrium dynamics after a local quantum quench in the Anderson Impurity Model. Being a completely general approach to real-time dynamics in quantum impurity models it can be used as a solver for Non Equilibrium Dynamical Mean Fie…
We introduce a quantum Monte Carlo technique to calculate exactly at finite temperatures the Green function of a fermionic quantum impurity coupled to a bosonic field. While the algorithm is general, we focus on the single impurity Anderson model coupled to a Holstein phonon as a schematic model for a molecular transistor. We compute the density of states at the impurity in a large range of parameters, to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the method. We also obtain the conductance of the impurity model and analyze different regimes. The results show that even in the case when the effe…
We show that the conductance of Spin Field Effect Transistors (SPINFET) [Datta and Das, Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 56, 665 (1990)] is affected by a single (non-magnetic) impurity in the transistor's channel. The extreme sensitivity of the amplitude and phase of the transistor's conductance oscillations to the location of a single impurity in the channel is reminiscent of the phenomenon of universal conductance fluctuations in mesoscopic samples and is extremely problematic as far as device implementation is concerned.
We investigate electron transport under the two impurity Kondo problem with the Aharonov--Bohm and Aharonov--Casher effects. These interference effects induce the Ising-coupled Ruderman--Kittel--Kasuya--Yosida (RKKY) interaction. We discuss the inter- and intra-site spin conductance as well as charge conductance in the Kondo and the mixed-valence regimes using the slave boson mean field approximation.
We study the low-temperature transport properties of the systems of parallel quantum dots described by the N-impurity Anderson model. We calculate the quasiparticle scattering phase shifts, spectral functions and correlations as a function of the gate voltage for N up to 5. For any N, the conductance at the particle-hole symmetric point is unitary. For N >= 2, a transition from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic impurity spin correlations occurs at some gate voltage. For N >= 3, there is an additional transition due to an abrupt change in average impurity occupancy. For odd N, the conductance …
Tunneling conductance through two quantum dots, which are connected in series to left and right leads, is calculated by using the numerical renormalization group method. As the hopping between the dots increases from very small value, the following states continuously appear; (i) Kondo singlet state of each dot with its adjacent-site lead, (ii) singlet state between the local spins on the dots, and (iii) double occupancy in the bonding orbital of the two dots. The conductance shows peaks at the transition regions between these states. Especially, the peak at the boundary between (i) and (ii) h…
Two key subjects stand out in the pursuit of semiconductor research: material quality and contact technology. The fledging field of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) faces a number of challenges in both efforts. This work attempts to establish a connection between the two by examining the gate-dependent conductance of few-layer (1-5L) WSe2 field effect devices. Measurements and modeling of the subgap regime reveal Schottky barrier transistor behavior. We show that transmission through the contact barrier is dominated by thermionic field emission (TFE) at room temperature…
The M-channel Anderson impurity model (M=1,2) is studied in the Kondo limit with a finite voltage bias applied to the conduction electron reservoirs. Using the Non-Crossing Approximation (NCA), we calculate the local spectral functions, the differential conductance, and susceptibility at non-zero bias for symmetric as well as asymmetric coupling of the impurity to the leads. We describe an effective procedure to solve the NCA integral equations which enables us to reach temperatures far below the Kondo scale. This allows us to study the scaling regime where the conductance depends on the bias …
We study transport through a one-dimensional quantum wire of correlated fermions connected to semi-infinite leads. The wire contains either a single impurity or two barriers, the latter allowing for resonant tunneling. In the leads the fermions are assumed to be non-interacting. The wire is described by a microscopic lattice model. Using the functional renormalization group we calculate the linear conductance for wires of mesoscopic length and for all relevant temperature scales. For a single impurity, either strong or weak, we find power-law behavior as a function of temperature. In addition,…
We have recently shown that asymmetric lateral spin orbit coupling (LSOC) resulting from the lateral in-plane electric field of the confining potential of a side-gated quantum point contact (QPC) can be used to create a strongly spin- polarized current by purely electrical means1 in the absence of applied magnetic field. Using the non-equilibrium Green function formalism (NEGF) analysis of a small model QPC2, three ingredients were found to be essential to generate the strong spin polarization: an asymmetric lateral confinement, a LSOC induced by the lateral confining potential of the QPC, and…
Interacting single-level quantum dot connected to BCS superconducting leads represents a well-controllable system to study the interplay between the correlation effects and the electron pairing that can result in a $0-π$ (singlet-doublet) quantum phase transition. The physics of this system can be well described by the impurity Anderson model. We present an analysis of the statistics of the perturbation expansion order of the continuous-time hybridization expansion quantum Monte Carlo algorithm in the vicinity of such a first-order impurity quantum phase transition. By calculating the moments …
Transport by helical edge states of a quantum spin Hall insulator is experimentally characterized by a weakly temperature-dependent mean free path of a few microns and by reproducible conductance oscillations, challenging proposed theoretical explanations. We consider a model where edge electrons experience spatially random Rashba spin-orbit coupling and couple to a magnetic impurity with spin S >= 1/2. In a finite bias steady state, we find for S > 1/2 an impurity induced resistance with a temperature dependence in agreement with experiments. Since backscattering is elastic, interference betw…
The electrical conductance of atomic metal contacts represents a powerful tool to detect nanomagnetism. Conductance reflects magnetism through anomalies at zero bias -- generally with Fano lineshapes -- due to the Kondo screening of the magnetic impurity bridging the contact. A full atomic-level understanding of this nutshell many-body system is of the greatest importance, especially in view of our increasing need to control nanocurrents by means of magnetism. Disappointingly, zero bias conductance anomalies are not presently calculable from atomistic scratch. In this Letter we demonstrate a w…
We present a detailed analysis of the Aharonov-Bohm interference oscillations manifested through transmission of an electron in a mesoscopic ring with a magnetic impurity atom inserted in one of its arms. The electron interacts with the impurity through the exchange interaction leading to exchange spin-flip scattering. Transmission in the spin-flipped and spin-unflipped channels are explicitly calculated. We show that the spin-flipper acts as a dephasor in spite of absence of any inelastic scattering. The spin-conductance (related to spin-polarized transmission coefficient) is asymmetric in th…
Effects of impurity scatterings on the conductance in normal-metal / $d$ wave superconductor junctions are discussed by using the single-site approximation. So far, the split of the zero-bias conductance peak has been believed to be an evidence of the broken time reversal symmetry states at the surface of high-$T_c$ superconductors. In this paper, however, it is shown that the impurity scattering near the interface also causes the split of the zero-bias conductance peak. Typical conductance spectra observed in experiments at finite temperatures and under external magnetic fields are explained …
Resonant tunnelling through an Anderson impurity is investigated by employing a new perturbation scheme at nonequilibrium. This new approach gives the correct weak and strong coupling limit in $U$ by introducing adjustable parameters in the self-energy and imposing self-consistency of the occupation number of the impurity. We have found that the zero-temperature linear response conductance agrees well with that obtained from the exact sum rule. At finite temperature the conductance shows a nonzero minimum at the Kondo valley, as shown in recent experiments. The effects of an applied bias volta…
We study the Anderson model in which a configuration with a doublet is hybridized with another with a singlet and a triplet. We calculate the conductance through the system as a function of temperature and bias voltage, near the quantum critical line for which the system is exactly solvable. The results explain recent transport measurements in a single-molecule quantum dot.
Nonlinear tunneling current through a quantum dot (an Anderson impurity system) subject to both constant and alternating electric fields is studied in the Kondo regime. A systematic diagram technique is developed for perturbation study of the current in physical systems out of equilibrium governed by time - dependent Hamiltonians of the Anderson and the Kondo models. The ensuing calculations prove to be too complicated for the Anderson model, and hence, a mapping on an effective Kondo problem is called for. This is achieved by constructing a time - dependent version of the Schrieffer - Wolff t…
In one-dimensional conductors, interactions result in correlated electronic systems. At low energy, a hallmark signature of the so-called Tomonaga-Luttinger liquids (TLL) is the universal conductance curve predicted in presence of an impurity. A seemingly different topic is the quantum laws of electricity, when distinct quantum conductors are assembled in a circuit. In particular, the conductances are suppressed at low energy, a phenomenon called dynamical Coulomb blockade (DCB). Here we investigate the conductance of mesoscopic circuits constituted by a short single-channel quantum conductor …
We study the effect of a magnetic field on the conductance through a strongly interacting quantum dot by using the finite temperature extension of Wilson's numerical renormalization group method to dynamical quantities. The quantum dot has one active level for transport and is modelled by an Anderson impurity attached to left and right electron reservoirs. Detailed predictions are made for the linear conductance and the spin-resolved conductance as a function of gate voltage, temperature and magnetic field strength. A strongly coupled quantum dot in a magnetic field acts as a spin filter which…
We present a theoretical model accounting for the anomalous Fabry-Perot pattern observed in the ballistic conductance of a single-wall carbon nanotubes. Using the scattering field theory, it is shown that the presence of a limited number of impurities along the nanotube can be identified by a measurement of the conductance and their position determined. Impurities can be made active or silent depending on the interaction with the substrate via the back-gate. The conceptual steps for designing a bio-molecules detector are briefly discussed.
The conductance through two quantum dots in series is studied using general qualitative arguments and quantitative slave-boson mean-field theory. It is demonstrated that measurements of the conductance can explore the phase diagram of the two-impurity Anderson model. Competition between the Kondo effect and the inter-dot magnetic exchange leads to a two-plateau structure in the conductance as a function of gate voltage and a two or three peak structure in the conductance vs. inter-dot tunneling.
The nonequilibrium spectral properties of the Anderson impurity model with a chemical potential bias are investigated within a numerically exact real time quantum Monte Carlo formalism. The two-time correlation function is computed in a form suitable for nonequilibrium dynamical mean field calculations. Additionally, the evolution of the model's spectral properties are simulated in an alternative representation, defined by a hypothetical but experimentally realizable weakly coupled auxiliary lead. The voltage splitting of the Kondo peak is confirmed and the dynamics of its formation after a co…
We analyze the spectral function of the single-impurity two-terminal Anderson model at finite voltage using the recently developed diagrammatic quantum Monte Carlo technique as well as perturbation theory. In the (particle-hole-)symmetric case we find an excellent agreement of the numerical data with the perturbative results of second order up to interaction strengths $U/Γ\approx 2$, where $Γ$ is the transparency of the impurity-electrode interface. The analytical results are obtained in form of the nonequilibrium self-energy for which we present explicit formulas in the closed form at arbitra…
The Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) concept is believed to generically describe the strongly-correlated physics of one-dimensional systems at low temperatures. A hallmark signature in 1D conductors is the quantum phase transition between metallic and insulating states induced by a single impurity. However, this transition impedes experimental explorations of real-world TLLs. Furthermore, its theoretical treatment, explaining the universal energy rescaling of the conductance at low temperatures, has so far been achieved exactly only for specific interaction strengths. Quantum simulation can pro…
The impurity-related electron transport through a double quantum dot (QD) Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer is theoretically studied, by considering impurities coupled to the QDs in the interferometer arms. When investigating the linear conductance spectra \emph{vs} the impurity levels, we show that the impurities influence the electron transport in a nontrivial way, since their suppressing or enhancing the electron tunneling. A presented single-level impurity leads to the appearance of Fano lineshapes in the conductance spectra in the absence of magnetic flux, with the positions of Fano antir…
We show that the scaling exponent for tunneling into a quantum wire in the "Coulomb Tonks gas" regime of impenetrable, but otherwise free, electrons is affected by impurity scattering in the wire. The exponent for tunneling into such a wire thus depends on the conductance through the wire. This striking effect originates from a many-body scattering resonance reminiscent of the Kondo effect. The predicted anomalous scaling is stable against weak perturbations of the ideal Tonks gas limit at sufficiently high energies, similar to the phenomenology of a quantum critical point.
We demonstrate that a quantum spin Hall current, spontaneously generated at the edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator, acts as a source of spin-pumping for a magnetic impurity with uniaxial anisotropy. One can then manipulate the impurity spin direction by means of an electrical current without using either magnetic electrodes or an external magnetic field. Furthermore we show that the unique properties of the quantum spin Hall topological state have profound effects on the inelastic electron tunneling spectrum of the impurity. For low current densities inelastic spin-flip events do …
We study triangular clusters of three spin-1/2 Kondo or Anderson impurities that are coupled to two conduction leads. In the case of Kondo impurities, the model takes the form of an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg ring with Kondo-like exchange coupling to continuum electrons. We show that this model exhibits many types of the behavior found in various simpler one and two-impurity models, thereby enabling the study of crossovers between a number of Fermi-liquid (FL) and non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) fixed points. In particular, we explore a direct crossover between the two-impurity Kondo-model NFL fixed …
We study the Kondo effect generated by a single magnetic impurity embedded in an ultrasmall metallic grain, to be called a ``Kondo box''. We find that the Kondo resonance is strongly affected when the mean level spacing in the grain becomes larger than the Kondo temperature, in a way that depends on the parity of the number of electrons on the grain. We show that the single-electron tunneling conductance through such a grain features Kondo-induced Fano-type resonances of measurable size, with an anomalous dependence on temperature and level spacing.
The origin of the 0.7-conductance anomaly in quantum point contacts (QPCs) has been a subject of lively discussions since its discovery more than 10 years ago. In a recent letter, based on spin density functional theory (DFT), Rejec and Meir explained the origin of the 0.7-anomaly as being due to the formation of a magnetic impurity in the QPCs [T. Rejec and Y. Meir, Nature 442, 900 (2006)]. They did not, however, perform transport conductance calculations so the central question whether the 0.7-anomaly is indeed related to the formation of a magnetic impurity has remained unanswered. In this …
We present series of first-principles calculations for both pure and hydrogen contaminated gold wire systems in order to investigate how such impurities can be detected. We show how a single H atom or a single H2 molecule in an atomic gold wire will affect forces and Au-Au atom distances under elongation. We further determine the corresponding evolution of the low-bias conductance as well as the inelastic contributions from vibrations. Our results indicate that the conductance of gold wires is only slightly reduced from the conductance quantum G0=2e^2/h by the presence of a single hydrogen imp…
Quantum transport is studied for the nonequilibrium Anderson impurity model at zero temperature employing the multilayer multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree theory within the second quantization representation (ML-MCTDH-SQR) of Fock space. To adress both linear and nonlinear conductance in the Kondo regime, two new techniques of the ML-MCTDH-SQR simulation methodology are introduced: (i) the use of correlated initial states, which is achieved by imaginary time propagation of the overall Hamiltonian at zero voltage and (ii) the adoption of the logarithmic discretization of the electronic …
We present a detailed analysis of the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interference oscillations manifested through transmission of an electron in a mesoscopic ring with a magnetic impurity atom inserted in one of its arms. The spin polarization transport is also studied. The electron interacts with the impurity through the exchange interaction leading to exchange spin-flip scattering. Transmission in the spin-flipped and spin-unflipped channels are explicitly calculated. We show that the entanglement between electron and spin-flipper states lead to a reduction of AB oscillations in spite of absence of any …
We show how the density-matrix numerical renormalization group (DM-NRG) method can be used in combination with non-Abelian symmetries such as SU(N), where the decomposition of the direct product of two irreducible representations requires the use of a so-called outer multiplicity label. We apply this scheme to the SU(3) symmetrical Anderson model, for which we analyze the finite size spectrum, determine local fermionic, spin, superconducting, and trion spectral functions, and also compute the temperature dependence of the conductance. Our calculations reveal a rich Fermi liquid structure.
Within the Landauer transport formalism we demonstrate that conductance zeroes are possible in bipartite systems at half-filling when leads are contacted to different sublattice sites. In particular, we investigate the application of this theory to graphene quantum dots with leads in the armchair configuration. The obtained conductance cancellation is robust in the presence of any single-site impurity.
An efficient method for computing the Landauer-Buettiker conductance of an open quantum system within DFT+U is presented. The Hubbard potential is included in electronic structure and transport calculations as a simple renormalization of the non-local pseudopotential coefficients by restricting the integration for the on-site occupations within the cutoff spheres of the pseudopotential. We apply the methodology to the case of an Au monatomic chain in presence of a CO molecule adsorbed on it. We show that the Hubbard U correction removes the spurious magnetization in the pristine Au chain at th…
We examine the properties of an infinite-$U$ Anderson impurity coupled to both normal and superconducting metals. Both the cases of a quantum dot and a quantum point contact containing an impurity are considered; for the latter, we study both one and two-channel impurities. Using a generalization of the noncrossing approximation which incorporates multiple Andreev reflection, we compute the impurity spectral function and the linear-response conductance of these devices. We find generically that the Kondo resonance develops structure at energies corresponding to the superconducting gap, and tha…
The dc conductance of a short spin-incoherent Hubbard chain coupled to leads is investigated using quantum Monte Carlo calculations. In contrast with the Luttinger liquid regime, where the conductance is equal to the noninteracting value, the spin-incoherent regime displays a conductance that decreases rapidly with chain length down to a value of roughly 1.5e2/h for a four site chain followed by a slower decrease for longer chains. We also discuss the resistance contribution from scattering in the contacts.
A quantum point contact (QPC) patterned on a two-dimensional electron gas is investigated with a scanning gate setup operated at a temperature of 300 mK. The conductance of the point contact is recorded while the local potential is modified by scanning the tip. Single electron charging of impurities induced by the local potential is observed as a stepwise conductance change of the constriction. By selectively changing the state of some of these impurities, it is possible to observe changes in transmission resonances of the QPC. The location of such impurities is determined, and their density i…
Even a single point defect in a quantum wire causes a conductance reduction. In this paper we prove (without any approximations) that for any point impurity this conductance reduction in all the sub-bands is exactly 2e^2/h. Moreover, it is shown that in the case of a surface defect, not only is the conductance minimum independent of the defect characteristics, but the transmission matrix also converges to universal (defect-independent) values. We also discuss particle confinement between two arbitrarily weak point defects.
