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arXiv:1610.02036 · SciPost Physics

Transient Features in Charge Fractionalization, Local Equilibration and Non-equilibrium Bosonization

Alexander Schneider, Mirco Milletari, Bernd Rosenow

Published Feb 25, 2017• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In quantum Hall edge states and in other one-dimensional interacting systems, charge fractionalization can occur due to the fact that an injected charge pulse decomposes into eigenmodes propagating at different velocities. If the original charge pulse has some spatial width due to injection with a given source-drain voltage, a finite time is needed until the separation between the fractionalized pulses is larger than their width. In the formalism of non-equilibrium bosonization, the above physics is reflected in the separation of initially overlapping square pulses in the effective scattering phase. When expressing the single particle Green's function as a functional determinant of counting operators containing the scattering phase, the time evolution of charge fractionalization is mathematically described by functional determinants with overlapping pulses. We develop a framework for the evaluation of such determinants, describe the system's equilibration dynamics, and compare our theoretical results with recent experimental findings.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphys.2.1.007

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In quantum Hall edge states and in other one-dimensional interacting systems, charge fractionalization can occur due to the fact that an injected charge pulse decomposes into eigenmodes propagating at different velocities. If the original charge pulse has some spatial width due to injection with a given source-drain voltage, a finite time is needed until the separation between the fractionalized pulses is larger than their width. In the formalism of non-equilibrium bosonization, the above physics is reflected in the separation of initially overlapping square pulses in the effective scattering phase. When expressing the single particle Green's function as a functional determinant of counting operators containing the scattering phase, the time evolution of charge fractionalization is mathematically described by functional determinants with overlapping pulses. We develop a framework for the evaluation of such determinants, describe the system's equilibration dynamics, and compare our theoretical results with recent experimental findings.
We develop a bosonization technique for one-dimensional fermions out of equilibrium. The approach is used to study a quantum wire attached to two electrodes with arbitrary energy distributions. The non-equilibrium electron Green function is expressed in terms of functional determinants of a single-particle"counting" operator with a time-dependent scattering phase. The result reveals an intrinsic relation of dephasing and energy redistribution in Luttinger-liquids to "fractionalization" of electron-hole excitations in the tunneling process and at boundaries with leads.
This thesis deals with the study of transport properties of integer and fractional QH edge states and it is based on the work I performed during my Ph.D. studies. The focus of this thesis is on Luttinger liquids far from equilibrium and their relaxation dynamics. Since Boltzmann, a fundamental aspect of statistical mechanics has been the understanding of the emergence of an equilibrium state. Interactions play a crucial role in the thermalization process that drives a system through states described by the Gibbs equilibrium ensemble. Therefore, it seems counterintuitive that a strongly interacting system, such as the Luttinger liquid, should not present any relaxation dynamics. This peculiar fact is due to the integrability of the Luttinger model, i.e. the existence of an infinite number of conserved quantities that precludes the equilibration process. However, in the past few years it has become clear that integrable systems can present some kind of relaxation, even though not towards the Gibbs equilibrium ensemble. Remarkably, the necessity of correctly taking into account some particular non-equilibrium configurations, also revealed the necessity of modifying bosonization, a technique widely used to study strongly interacting systems in one dimension. In this work we focus on three different cases: • Relaxation of high energy electrons injected in a ν = 1/3 chiral Luttinger liquid and in a standard Luttinger liquid. • Heating and the emergence of effective temperatures in a Quantum Hall system at fractional filling fraction ν = 2/3 partitioned by a Quantum Point Contact. • Effect of relaxation on shot-noise measurement of the quasi-particle charge in a ν = 2 QH state.
Bosonization technique for one-dimensional fermions out of equilibrium is developed in the framework of the Keldysh action formalism. We first demonstrate how this approach is implemented for free fermions and for the problem of nonequilibrium Fermi edge singularity. We then employ the technique to study an interacting quantum wire attached to two electrodes with arbitrary energy distributions. The nonequilibrium electron Green's functions, which can be measured via tunneling spectroscopy technique and carry the information about energy distribution, zero-bias anomaly, and dephasing, are expressed in terms of functional determinants of single-particle ``counting'' operators. The corresponding time-dependent scattering phase is found to be intrinsically related to ``fractionalization'' of electron-hole excitations in the tunneling process and at boundaries with leads. Results are generalized to the case of spinful particles as well to Green's functions at different spatial points (relevant to the problem of dephasing in Luttinger liquid interferometers). For double-step distributions, the dephasing rates are oscillatory functions of the interaction strength.
We study the problem of injecting single electrons into interacting one-dimensional quantum systems, a fundamental building block for electron quantum optics. It is well known that such injection leads to charge and energy fractionalization. We elucidate this concept by calculating the nonequilibrium electron distribution function in the momentum and energy domains after the injection of an energy-resolved electron. Our results shed light on how fractionalization occurs via the creation of particle-hole pairs by the injected electron. In particular, we focus on systems with a pair of counterpropagating channels, and we fully analyze the properties of each chiral fractional excitation which is created by the injection. We suggest possible routes to access their energy and momentum distribution functions in topological quantum Hall or quantum spin-Hall edge states.
One of the manifestations of the integrability of electron dynamics in one dimension is the existence of non-equilibrium stationary states. Such states emerge near a quantum point contact coupling two quantum Hall edges with different chemical potentials. We use a non-equilibrium bosonization technique to show that the effective temperature in such states at the fractional quantum Hall edge has a universal linear dependence on the current through the contact. In contrast, the temperature of one-dimensional equilibrium systems scales as the square root of the corresponding dissipating power. This striking difference from the equilibrium behavior can be used to experimentally detect these unique non-equilibrium states.
Recent advances of experimental nanofabrication techniques draw increasing attention to the non-equilibrium behavior of low dimensional systems. Of particular interest are the strongly interacting one dimensional systems whose description in out of equilibrium situations remains a theoretical challenge. This thesis contributes to the understanding of important elementary processes in the non-equilibrium physics of one dimensional electron systems. Tunneling of an electron into a Luttinger liquid leads to partitioning of its charge and energy into counter-propagating modes. This thesis studies the partitioning of the energy which had previously remained unexplored. It turns out that energy partitioning is essentially independent of the charge partitioning and one can even reach conditions such that energy and charge propagate in opposite directions. Another important difference is their experimental accessibility. In contrast to the charge, energy partitioning provides a measurable characteristic of the tunneling process even in dc setups and we propose experimental geometries that allow for tuning and detecting energy partitioning. At higher excitation energies it becomes necessary to include curvature effects of the electron dispersion. Another part of this thesis discusses the consequences of curvature induced three-body collisions on the relaxation in quantum wires. This is particularly interesting due to the integrability of the Luttinger model which does not allow for thermalization within this paradigm of one dimensional systems. In this thesis we derive energy relaxation rates due to three-body processes beyond the Luttinger model within a well-defined perturbative approach. It turns out that the electron spin and the long range Coulomb interaction are important ingredients for a quantitative description of recent experiments which we provide in this thesis. Furthermore, we study the influence of three-body collisions on the energy relaxation in integer quantum Hall edge states. We specifically address different interaction induced edge reconstruction scenarios and find that edge reconstruction strongly enhances the energy relaxation. This is particularly pronounced when the reconstruction creates additional counter-propagating modes. Finally, we discuss another system which is crucially controlled by non-equilibrium effects. The so called nanoelectromechanical systems show a coupling between the electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom. The electron current can thus influence the mechanical motion which leads to a number of interesting applications. Previous theoretical studies on the basis of non-equilibrium Green's functions showed that these current induced forces can be expressed in terms of intuitive scattering matrix expressions. This thesis sheds considerable light on this observation by providing a much more satisfactory and concise derivation of the scattering theory of current induced forces.