We apply exact-exchange spin-density functional theory in the Krieger-Li-Iafrate approximation to interacting electrons in quantum rings of different widths. The rings are threaded by a magnetic flux that induces a persistent current. A weak space and spin symmetry breaking potential is introduced to allow for localized solutions. As the electron-electron interaction strength described by the dimensionless parameter r(S) is increased, we observe-at a fixed spin magnetic moment-the subsequent transition of both spin sub-systems from the Fermi liquid to the Wigner crystal state. A dramatic signature of Wigner crystallization is that the persistent current drops sharply with increasing r(S). We observe simultaneously the emergence of pronounced oscillations in the spin-resolved densities and in the electron localization functions indicating a spatial electron localization showing ferrimagnetic order after both spin sub-systems have undergone the Wigner crystallization. The critical r(S)(c) at the transition point is substantially smaller than in a fully spin-polarized system and decreases further with decreasing ring width. Relaxing the constraint of a fixed spin magnetic moment, we find that on increasing r(S) the stable phase changes from an unpolarized Fermi liquid to an antiferromagnetic Wigner crystal and finally to a fully polarized Fermi liquid.
We calculate the magnetic moment (`persistent current') in a strongly correlated electron system --- a Wigner crystal --- in a one-dimensional ballistic ring. The flux- and temperature dependence of the persistent current is shown to be essentially the same as for a system of non-interacting electrons. In contrast, by incorporating into the ring geometry a tunnel barrier, that pins the Wigner crystal, the current is suppressed and its temperature dependence is drastically changed. The competition between two temperature effects --- a reduced barrier height for macroscopic tunneling and a loss of quantum coherence --- results in a sharp peak in the temperature dependence, which for a rigid Wigner crystal appears at
T∼0.5 ℏs/L, (
s is the sound velocity of the Wigner crystal,
L is the length of the ring).
Charge persistent currents in single-channel ballistic rings are investigated in various models of strongly correlated electrons (Wigner crystal, Luttinger liquid, Hubbard model, t–J model, and the fermion representation of the Heisenberg–Ising model). The primary objective of the survey is to compare the properties of Aharonov–Bohm oscillations for weakly and strongly correlated electrons and to formulate a set of persistent current characteristics that will unambiguously support the anomalous (departing from a Fermi liquid) behavior of one-dimensional electron systems. For this purpose the onset of the parity effect (dependence of the system response on whether the number of particles in the ring is odd or even) and various properties of the persistent current are analyzed in detail for model spinless fermions and real electrons. The influence of solitary impurities on the value and temperature dependence of the amplitude of the Aharanov–Bohm oscillations is also investigated. It is shown that the formation of a Wigner crystal (which is possible for weakly shielded Coulomb interaction) leads to a very pronounced anomalous (nonmonotonic) temperature dependence of the current in a nonideal ring. The properties of the charge current near the Mott metal–insulator transition are altered to the greatest degree by local types of electron–electron interaction.
The persistent current in a lattice model of a one-dimensional interacting electron system is systematically studied using a complex version of the density-matrix renormalization group algorithm and the functional renormalization group method. We mainly focus on the situation where a single impurity is included in the ring penetrated by a magnetic flux. Due to the interplay of the electron-electron interaction and the impurity the persistent current in a system of N lattice sites vanishes faster than
1/N. Only for very large systems and large impurities our results are consistent with the Bosonization prediction obtained for an effective field theory. The results from the density-matrix renormalization group and the functional renormalization group agree well for interactions as large as half the bandwidth, even though as an approximation in the latter method the flow of the two-particle vertex is neglected. This confirms that the functional renormalization group method is a very powerful tool to investigate correlated electron systems. The method will become very useful for the theoretical description of the electronic properties of small conducting ring molecules.
We study the persistent current and the Drude weight of a system of spinless fermions, with repulsive interactions and a hopping impurity, on a mesoscopic ring pierced by a magnetic flux, using a density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) algorithm for complex fields. Both the Luttinger liquid (LL) and the charge density wave (CDW) phases of the system are considered. Under a Jordan-Wigner transformation, the system is equivalent to a spin-
1∕2 XXZ chain with a weakened exchange coupling. We find that the persistent current changes from an algebraic to an exponential decay with the system size, as the system crosses from the LL to the CDW phase with increasing interaction
U. We also find that in the interacting system, the persistent current is invariant under the impurity transformation $\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1∕\ensuremath{\rho}$, for large system sizes, where $\ensuremath{\rho}$ is the defect strength. The persistent current exhibits a decay that is in agreement with the behavior obtained for the Drude weight. We find that in the LL phase the Drude weight decreases algebraically with the number of lattice sites
N, due to the interplay of the electron interaction with the impurity, while in the CDW phase, it decreases exponentially, defining a localization length which decreases with increasing interaction and impurity strength. Our results show that the impurity and the interactions always decrease the persistent current, and imply that the Drude weight vanishes in the limit $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ in both phases.
We study the persistent current in a quasi-one-dimensional ring with strongly correlated electrons forming a multichannel Wigner crystal (WC). The influence of the Coulomb interaction manifests itself only in the presence of external scatterers that pin the WC. Two regimes of weak and strong pinning are considered. For strong pinning we predict the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations with fractional period. Fractionalization is due to the interchannel coupling in the process of quantum tunneling of the WC. The fractional period depends on the filling of the channels and may serve as an indicator of non-Fermi-liquid behavior of interacting electrons in quasi-one-dimensional rings.