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arXiv:0911.1292 · Physical Review B

Variational approach to transport in quantum dots

Nicola Lanatà

Published Nov 23, 2010• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We have derived a variational principle that defines the nonequilibrium steady-state transport across a correlated impurity (mimicking, e.g., a quantum dot) coupled to biased leads. This variational principle has been specialized to a Gutzwiller's variational space, and applied to the study of the simple single-orbital Anderson impurity model at half filling, finding a good qualitative accord with the observed behavior in quantum dots for the expected regime of values of the bias. Beyond the purely theoretical interest in the formal definition of a variational principle in a nonequilibrium problem, the particular methods proposed have the important advantage to be simple and flexible enough to deal with more complicated systems and variational spaces.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.82.195326

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We have derived a variational principle that defines the nonequilibrium steady-state transport across a correlated impurity (mimicking, e.g., a quantum dot) coupled to biased leads. This variational principle has been specialized to a Gutzwiller's variational space, and applied to the study of the simple single-orbital Anderson impurity model at half filling, finding a good qualitative accord with the observed behavior in quantum dots for the expected regime of values of the bias. Beyond the purely theoretical interest in the formal definition of a variational principle in a nonequilibrium problem, the particular methods proposed have the important advantage to be simple and flexible enough to deal with more complicated systems and variational spaces.
We extend the time-dependent Gutzwiller variational approach, recently introduced by Schir\`o and Fabrizio [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 076401 (2010)], to impurity problems. Furthermore, we derive a consistent theory for the steady state, and show its equivalence with the previously introduced nonequilibrium steady-state extension of the Gutzwiller approach. The method is shown to be able to capture dissipation in the leads, so that a steady state is reached after a sufficiently long relaxation time. The time-dependent method is applied to the single-orbital Anderson impurity model at half filling, modeling a quantum dot coupled to two leads. In these exploratory calculations, the Gutzwiller projector is limited to act only on the impurity. The strengths and the limitations of this approximation are assessed via comparison with state-of-the-art continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo results. Finally, we discuss how the method can be systematically improved by extending the region of action of the Gutzwiller projector.
We present improvements of a recently introduced numerical method [E. Arrigoni et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 086403 (2013)] to compute steady-state properties of strongly correlated electronic systems out of equilibrium. The method can be considered as a nonequilibrium generalization of exact diagonalization based dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). The key modification for the nonequilibrium situation consists in addressing the DMFT impurity problem within an auxiliary system consisting of the correlated impurity, Nb{N}_{b}Nb​ uncorrelated bath sites, and two Markovian environments (sink and reservoir). Algorithmic improvements in the impurity solver allow to treat efficiently larger values of Nb{N}_{b}Nb​ than previously in DMFT. This increases the accuracy of the results and is crucial for a correct description of the physical behavior of the system in the relevant parameter range including a semiquantitative description of the Kondo regime. To illustrate the approach, we consider a monoatomic layer of correlated orbitals, described by the single-band Hubbard model, attached to two metallic leads. The nonequilibrium situation is driven by a bias voltage applied to the leads. For this system, we investigate the spectral function and the steady-state current-voltage characteristics in the weakly as well as in the strongly interacting limit. In particular, we investigate the nonequilibrium behavior of quasiparticle excitations within the Mott gap of the correlated layer. We find for low-bias voltage Kondo-type behavior in the vicinity of the insulating phase. In particular, we observe a splitting of the Kondo resonance as a function of the bias voltage.
The theoretical description of strongly correlated quantum systems out of equilibrium presents several challenges and a number of open questions persist. In this paper we focus on nonlinear electronic transport through an interacting quantum dot maintained at finite bias using a concept introduced by Hershfield [Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2134 (1993)] whereby one can express such nonequilibrium quantum impurity models in terms of the system's Lippmann-Schwinger operators. These scattering operators allow one to reformulate the nonequilibrium problem as an effective equilibrium problem associated with a modified Hamiltonian. In this paper we provide a pedagogical analysis of the core concepts of the effective equilibrium theory. First, we demonstrate the equivalence between observables computed using the Schwinger-Keldysh framework and the effective equilibrium approach, and relate the Green's functions in the two theoretical frameworks. Second, we expound some applications of this method in the context of interacting quantum impurity models. We introduce a novel framework to treat effects of interactions perturbatively while capturing the entire dependence on the bias voltage. For the sake of concreteness, we employ the Anderson model as a prototype for this scheme. Working at the particle-hole symmetric point, we investigate the fate of the Abrikosov-Suhl resonance as a function of bias voltage and magnetic field.
We study non-equilibrium properties of a strongly correlated quantum dot system, represented by the single impurity Andersonmodel, by means of the recently introduced non-equilibrium variational cluster approach [1]. We focus on the steady-state current density and non-equilibrium density of states in a parameter region of high interaction strength in the particle-hole symmetric case, which lies in the center of the Kondo regime. The bias dependent current density shows a gradually developing two peak structure with increasing interaction strength. It agrees with the linear response result in the low bias region and vanishes as expected at high bias due to a vanishing band overlap. The non-equilibrium density of states exhibits a linear splitting of the Kondo resonance with applied bias voltage. We compare results obtained via non-equilibrium variational cluster approach with non-equilibrium cluster perturbation theory.
We calculate steady-state properties of a strongly correlated quantum dot under voltage bias by means of nonequilibrium cluster perturbation theory and the nonequilibrium variational cluster approach, respectively. Results for the steady-state current are benchmarked against data from accurate matrix product state based time evolution. We show that for low to medium interaction strength, nonequilibrium cluster perturbation theory already yields good results, while for higher interaction strength the self-consistent feedback of the nonequilibrium variational cluster approach significantly enhances the accuracy. We report the current-voltage characteristics for different interaction strengths. Furthermore we investigate the nonequilibrium local density of states of the quantum dot and illustrate that within the variational approach a linear splitting and broadening of the Kondo resonance is predicted which depends on interaction strength. Calculations with applied gate voltage, away from particle-hole symmetry, reveal that the maximum current is reached at the crossover from the Kondo regime to the doubly occupied or empty quantum dot. Obtained stability diagrams compare very well to recent experimental data [A. V. Kretinin et al., Phys. Rev. B 84, 245316 (2011)].
We develope a method of mapping quantum nonequilibrium steady-state to an effective equilibrium system and present an algorithm to calculate electron-transport using an equilibrium technique. A systematic implementation of boundary conditions in steady-state nonequilibrium is made in the statistical operator $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{Y}$ constructed from scattering state operators. We explicitly demonstrate the equivalence of this method to nonequilibrium Green function techniques for a noninteracting quantum dot model. In electron-phonon coupled quantum dot systems, we formulate an algorithm to construct the statistical bias operator $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{Y}$ and perform a full many-body calculation with the quantum Monte Carlo technique. The results coherently demonstrate various transport behaviors such as phonon dephasing, $I\ensuremath{-}V$ staircase, and phonon-assisted tunneling phenomena. This formulation makes the existing computational quantum many-body techniques applicable to quantum steady-state nonequilibrium problems, which will complement the theories based on the diagrammatic approach.