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arXiv:0812.0357

Comment on "Twofold Advance in the Theoretical Understanding of Far-From-Equilibrium Properties of Interacting Nanostructures"

L. Borda, A. Zawadowski

Published Dec 1, 2008• 0 citations
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Abstract

Boulat, Saleur and Schmitteckert (BSS) reported results on the full $I-V$ characteristics of the interacting resonant level model (IRLM) exhibiting region with unexpected negative differential conductance (NDC). Using time-dependent density matrix renormalization group complemented with the exact solution performed at a special point (the self-dual point) in the parameter space BSS have shown that at nonzero Coulomb interaction $U$ the current flowing through the impurity level (IL) exhibits a power-law asymptotics as a function of large applied bias voltage. Similar conclusion was earlier reached by Doyon. Even though their results are solid and supported by both analytic and numeric arguments, BSS concluded that "the NDC at large voltage seems a truly nonperturbative behavior, with unclear physical origin". On the contrary, the remarkable physics of NDC can be explained by simple physical arguments and, as we shall show in this Comment, in certain circumstances can be calculated in the framework of perturbation theory.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.0812.0357

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Boulat, Saleur and Schmitteckert (BSS) reported results on the full I−VI-VI−V characteristics of the interacting resonant level model (IRLM) exhibiting region with unexpected negative differential conductance (NDC). Using time-dependent density matrix renormalization group complemented with the exact solution performed at a special point (the self-dual point) in the parameter space BSS have shown that at nonzero Coulomb interaction UUU the current flowing through the impurity level (IL) exhibits a power-law asymptotics as a function of large applied bias voltage. Similar conclusion was earlier reached by Doyon. Even though their results are solid and supported by both analytic and numeric arguments, BSS concluded that "the NDC at large voltage seems a truly nonperturbative behavior, with unclear physical origin". On the contrary, the remarkable physics of NDC can be explained by simple physical arguments and, as we shall show in this Comment, in certain circumstances can be calculated in the framework of perturbation theory.
We calculate the full I-V characteristics at vanishing temperature in the self-dual interacting resonant level model in two ways. The first uses careful time dependent density matrix renormalization group with a large number of states per block and a representation of the reservoirs as leads subjected to a chemical potential. The other is based on integrability in the continuum limit, and generalizes early work by Fendley, Ludwig, and Saleur on the boundary sine-Gordon model. The two approaches are in excellent agreement, and uncover among other things a power law decay of the current at large voltages when U>0.
We evaluate the nonequilibrium single-particle Green's functions in the steady state of the interacting resonant level model (IRLM) under the effect of an applied bias voltage. Employing the so-called auxiliary master equation approach, we present accurate nonperturbative results for the nonequilibrium spectral and effective distribution functions, as well as for the current-voltage characteristics. We find a drastic change of these spectral properties between the regimes of low- and high-bias voltages and discuss the relation of these changes to the negative differential conductance (NDC), a prominent feature in the nonequilibrium IRLM. The anomalous evolution of the effective distribution function next to the impurity shown by our calculations suggests a mechanism whereby the impurity gets effectively decoupled from the leads at voltages where the NDC sets in, in agreement with previous renormalization group approaches. This scenario is qualitatively confirmed by a Hartree-Fock treatment of the model.
We develop a new perturbative method for studying any steady states of quantum impurities, in or out of equilibrium. We show that steady-state averages are completely fixed by basic properties of the steady-state (Hershfield's) density matrix along with dynamical "impurity conditions." This gives the full perturbative expansion without Feynman diagrams (matrix products instead are used), and "resums" into an equilibrium average that may lend itself to numerical procedures. We calculate the universal current in the interacting resonant level model (IRLM) at finite bias V to first order in Coulomb repulsion U for all V and temperatures. We find that the bias, like the temperature, cuts off low-energy processes. In the IRLM, this implies a power-law decay of the current at large V (also recently observed by Boulat and Saleur at some finite value of U).
We investigate equilibrium and steady-state nonequilibrium transport properties of a spinless resonant level locally coupled to two conduction bands of width $\ensuremath{\sim}\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ via a Coulomb interaction UUU and a hybridization ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$. In order to study the effects of finite bias voltages beyond linear response, a generalization of the functional renormalization group to Keldysh frequency space is employed. Being mostly unexplored in the context of quantum impurity systems out of equilibrium, we benchmark this method against recently published time-dependent density matrix renormalization group data. We thoroughly investigate the scaling limit $\ensuremath{\Gamma}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ characterized by the appearance of power laws. Most importantly, at the particle-hole symmetric point the steady-state current decays like $J\ensuremath{\sim}{V}^{\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{J}}$ as a function of the bias voltage $V⪢{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, with an exponent ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{J}(U)$ that we calculate to leading order in the Coulomb interaction strength. In contrast, we do not observe a pure power-law (but more complex) current-voltage-relation if the energy ϵϵϵ of the resonant level is pinned close to either one of the chemical potentials $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}V/2$.
Using time-dependent density matrix renormalization group calculations we study the transport properties ($I\ensuremath{-}V$ curves and shot noise) of the interacting resonant level model (IRLM) in a large range of the interaction parameter UUU, in the scaling limit. We find that these properties can be described remarkably well by those of the boundary sine-Gordon model (BSG), which are known analytically [Fendley et al., Phys. Rev. B 52, 8934 (1995).]. We argue that the two models are nevertheless in different universality classes out-of-equilibrium: this requires a delicate discussion of their infrared (IR) properties (i.e., at low bias), where we prove in particular that the effective tunneling charge is eee in the infrared regime of the IRLM (except at the self-dual point where it jumps to 2e2e2e), while it is known to be a continuously varying function of UUU in the BSG. This behavior is confirmed by careful analysis of the numerical data in the IR. The remarkable agreement of the transport properties, especially in the crossover region, remains however unexplained.
Numerical time evolution of transport states using time dependent Density Matrix Renormalization Group (td-DMRG) methods has turned out to be a powerful tool to calculate the linear and finite bias conductance of interacting impurity systems coupled to non-interacting one-dimensional leads. Several models, including the Interacting Resonant Level Model (IRLM), the Single Impurity Anderson Model (SIAM), as well as models with different multi site structures, have been subject of investigations in this context. In this work we give an overview of the different numerical approaches that have been successfully applied to the problem and go into considerable detail when we comment on the techniques that have been used to obtain the full I--V-characteristics for the IRLM. Using a model of spinless fermions consisting of an extended interacting nanostructure attached to non-interacting leads, we explain the method we use to obtain the current--voltage characteristics and discuss the finite size effects that have to be taken into account. We report results for the linear and finite bias conductance through a seven site structure with weak and strong nearest-neighbor interactions. Comparison with exact diagonalisation results in the non-interacting limit serve as a verification of the accuracy of our approach. Finally we discuss the possibility of effectively enlarging the finite system by applying damped boundaries and give an estimate of the effective system size and accuracy that can be expected in this case.