We study manifestations of spin-charge separation (SCS) in transport through a tunnel-coupled interacting single-channel quantum ring. We focus on the high-temperature case (temperature
T larger than the level spacing $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$) and discuss both the classical (flux-independent) and interference contributions to the tunneling conductance of the ring in the presence of magnetic flux. We demonstrate that the SCS effects, which arise solely from the electron-electron interaction, lead to the appearance of a peculiar fine structure of the electron spectrum in the ring. Specifically, each level splits into a series of sublevels, with their spacing governed by the interaction strength. In the high-
T limit, the envelope of the series contains of the order of $T/\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ sublevels. At the same time, SCS suppresses the tunneling width of the sublevels by a factor of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}/T$. As a consequence, the classical transmission through the ring remains unchanged compared to the noninteracting case: the suppression of tunneling is compensated by the increase of the number of tunneling channels. On the other hand, the flux-dependent contribution to the conductance depends on the interaction-induced dephasing rate which is known to be parametrically increased by SCS in an infinite system. We show, however, that SCS is not effective for dephasing in the limit of weak tunneling. Moreover, generically, in the almost closed ring, the dephasing rate does not depend on the interaction strength and is determined by the tunneling coupling to the leads. In certain special symmetric cases, dephasing is further suppressed. Similarly to the spinless case, the high-
T conductance shows, as a function of magnetic flux, a sequence of interaction-induced sharp negative peaks on top of the classical contribution.
We consider a ring of strongly interacting electrons connected to two external leads by tunnel junctions. By studying the positions of conductance resonances as a function of gate voltage and magnetic flux, the interaction parameter
g can be determined experimentally. For a finite ring the minimum conductance is strongly influenced by device geometry and electron-electron interactions. In particular, if the tunnel junctions are close to one another, the interaction-related orthogonality catastrophe is suppressed and the valley current is unexpectedly large.
We develop a nonperturbative numerical method to study tunneling of a single electron through an Aharonov-Bohm ring where several strongly interacting electrons are bound. Inelastic processes and spin-flip scattering are taken into account. The method is applied to study microscopic mechanisms of dephasing in a nontrivial model. We show that the electron-electron interactions described by the Hubbard Hamiltonian lead to strong dephasing: the transmission probability at flux $\ensuremath{\Phi}=\ensuremath{\pi}$ is high even at small interaction strength. In addition to inelastic scattering, we identify two energy-conserving mechanisms of dephasing: symmetry-changing and spin-flip scattering. The many-electron state on the ring determines which of these mechanisms will be at play: transmitted current can occur either in elastic or inelastic channels, with or without changing the spin of the scattering electron.
Vacuum fluctuations are a source of irreversibility and decoherence. We investigate the persistent current and its fluctuations in a ring with an in-line quantum dot with an Aharonov-Bohm flux through the hole of the ring. The Coulomb blockade leads to persistent current peaks at values of the gate voltage at which two charge states of the dot have the same free energy. We couple the structure to an external circuit and investigate the effect of the zero-temperature (vacuum fluctuations) on the ground state of the ring. We find that the ground state of the ring undergoes a crossover from a state with an average persistent current much larger than the (time-dependent) mean squared fluctuations to a state with a small average persistent current and large mean squared fluctuations. We discuss the spectral density of charge fluctuations and discuss diffusion rates for angle variables characterizing the ground state in Bloch representation.
We study the effect of strong electron-electron interactions on the persistent current in a multichannel ring with the aid of Bosonization and the Bethe ansatz equation discussed by Sutherland and Tsvelik. The interaction acts differently on a single and multichannel ring. If, in the first case, the current is suppressed, then in the second case the current may be enhanced. With the interaction the current is proportional to square of the number of channels. The maximum effect corresponds to medium values of the interaction, where
U∼VF. The new phenomenon of the fractional p/q- Aharonov-Bohm effect appears for interacting electrons on the multichannel ring.
Theoretical studies suggest that an interacting one-dimensional electron system does not behave as a Fermi liquid. Instead, it is predicted to form a Luttinger liquid characterized e.g. by the absence of fermionic quasiparticles and interaction-dependent power-laws for transport quantities. So far, however, only a limited number of experiments have provided evidence for Luttinger liquid behavior. In this thesis we consider alternative methods to detect electronic correlations in one-dimensional electron systems based on our calculations of persistent currents and quantization of charge in ballistic single channel rings. The persistent current in an isolated impurity-free Luttinger liquid ring is found to be the same as for a system of non-interacting electrons. In contrast, a Luttinger liquid behavior is revealed if the ring is weakly connected to an electron reservoir and capacitively coupled to a gate electrode. The persistent current and the average charge in the ring are shown to change in a stepwise manner with the gate voltage at low temperatures. Both the step positions and the crossover temperatures are determined by the Luttinger liquid correlation parameter .alpha.(.alpha.c) which therefore can be measured. When a potential barrier is incorporated into the ring, the presence of strong interactions between electrons leads to a suppression of the persistent current and a change in its temperature dependence. A sharp maximum of the current is predicted to occur as a function of temperature. When two barriers are introduced into the ring, the possibility of resonant tunneling for the persistent current opens up. Two kinds of resonant behavior are discovered in the closed geometry: a current independent of the barrier transparency and a current analogous to the one with a single potential barrier. The persistent current in a ring containing a gas of fractionally charged excitations obeying fractional exclusion statistics is also studied. At finite temperatures, anomalous oscillations of the current are predicted as a manifestation of the statistics of the quasiparticles.