Quantum dot devices may be tuned to Kondo models which have non-interacting limits such as the Toulouse limit. At sufficiently low temperatures the Toulouse limit can be used to make predictions for charge transport in the devices driven away from equilibrium, e.g. with an ac bias. We investigate non-equilibrium transport in a resonant level model with a single lead which may be mapped onto the Toulouse limit of the one-channel Kondo model. The main results are expressions for the charge current that are exact in the tunnelling couplings, while remaining in the linear response regime of the time-dependent voltage bias. We also show how the line of enquiry directly extends to the tunnelling junction studied by A.~Schiller and S.~Hershfield in which a Kondo impurity interacts separately with two leads.
Quantum dot devices may be tuned to Kondo models which have non-interacting limits such as the Toulouse limit. At sufficiently low temperatures the Toulouse limit can be used to make predictions for charge transport in the devices driven away from equilibrium, e.g. with an ac bias. We investigate non-equilibrium transport in a resonant level model with a single lead which may be mapped onto the Toulouse limit of the one-channel Kondo model. The main results are expressions for the charge current that are exact in the tunnelling couplings, while remaining in the linear response regime of the time-dependent voltage bias. We also show how the line of enquiry directly extends to the tunnelling junction studied by A.~Schiller and S.~Hershfield in which a Kondo impurity interacts separately with two leads.
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 discuss the conductance of a Luttinger liquid interrupted by a quantum dot containing a single resonant level. Using bosonization and refermionization methods, we find a mapping to a Kondo-type problem which possesses a nontrivial Toulouse-type solvable point. At this point, we obtain an analytic expression for the nonlinear current-voltage characteristics and analyze the differential conductance and the width of the resonance peak as functions of bias and gate voltages, temperature, and barrier asymmetry. We also determine the exact scaling function for the linear conductance.
The resonant-level model represents a paradigmatic quantum system which serves as a basis for many other quantum impurity models. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the nonequilibrium transport near a quantum phase transition in a spinless dissipative resonant-level model, extending earlier work [Phys. Rev. Lett 102, 216803 (2009)]. A detailed derivation of a rigorous mapping of our system onto an effective Kondo model is presented. A controlled energy-dependent renormalization-group approach is applied to compute the nonequilibrium current in the presence of a finite bias voltage V. In the linear-response regime $V\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, the system exhibits as a function of the dissipative strength a localized-delocalized quantum transition of the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) type. We address fundamental issues of the nonequilibrium transport near the quantum phase transition: Does the bias voltage play the same role as temperature to smear out the transition? What is the scaling of the nonequilibrium conductance near the transition? At finite temperatures, we show that the conductance follows the equilibrium scaling for V<T, while it obeys a distinct nonequilibrium profile for V>T. We furthermore provide different signatures of the transition in the finite-frequency current noise and ac conductance via a recently developed functional renormalization group (FRG) approach. The generalization of our analysis to nonequilibrium transport through a resonant level coupled to two chiral Luttinger liquid leads, generated by fractional quantum Hall edge states, is discussed. Our work on the dissipative resonant level has direct relevance to experiments on a quantum dot coupled to a resistive environment, such as H. Mebrahtu et al., [Nature (London) 488, 61 (2012)].
Motivated by the experimental realization of a multi-channel charge Kondo device [Iftikhar et al., Nature (London) 526, 233 (2015)], we study generic charge and heat transport properties of the charge two-channel Kondo model. We present a comprehensive discussion of the out-of-equilibrium and time-dependent charge transport, as well as thermal transport within linear response theory. The transport properties are calculated at, and also in the vicinity of, the exactly solvable Emery-Kivelson point, which has the form of a Majorana fermion resonant level model. We focus on regimes where our solution gives exact results for the physical quantum dot device, and highlight new predictions relevant to future experiments.
Correlations are a central ingredient of modern condensed matter physics. With the advent of mesoscopic physics, it became possible to study correlated systems in non-equilibrium situations, which can be reached by e.g. driving a constant current through a quantum dot. A basic question is how correlations on the one hand and a non-equilibrium current on the other hand influence each other. Here this interplay is studied for the model system of a quantum dot in the Kondo regime using the real time renormalization group (RTRG) method. This method is a functional renormalization group (RG) method allowing a non-perturbative description of correlated systems in non-equilibrium. For the Kondo quantum dot the method is generalized to the case of double vertices. The RTRG method not only provides equations for the calculation of the renormalized coupling between the quantum dot spin and the reservoir electrons, but also equations for the calculation of the non-equilibrium decoherence rate and the non-equilibrium current.The RG equations are derived to second order. This approximation is expected to be valid as long as the quantum dot does not enter the strong coupling regime, i.e. the effective coupling strength between the quantum dot spin and the electrons does not become too large. It is found that this is the case if the bias voltage applied to the dot or the temperature is much larger than the Kondo temperature.It is shown that the RG equations lead to coupling functions depending on the energy of the incident and the scattered electron. This dependence is simplified to the dependence on the average energy of the incident and the scattered electron in the weak coupling regime.A closer inspection of the RG equations for the couplings shows that they not only contain terms leading to a logarithmic increase of the coupling strength but also subleading terms which are unimportant in the weak coupling regime. The RG equations are solved analytically for the case where the subleading terms are neglected. It is found that the coupling functions develop resonances at energies associated with the chemical potentials of the reservoirs. The height of these resonances is determined by the decoherence rate. However, for bias voltages much larger than the Kondo temperature these resonances do not affect the conductance for a two terminal setup, so the conductance does not provide a measure for the decoherence rate in this case. It is found that the conductance for the two terminal setup is a universal function of voltage/Kondo temperature and temperature/Kondo temperature in the weak coupling regime. This function is calculated analytically in the limits of vanishing voltage or temperature. Furthermore, it is found that for zero temperature the decoherence rate is proportional to the non-equilibrium current flowing through the system. This supports the physical picture that a non-equilibrium current is associated with a decoherence rate, which cuts the logarithmic scaling of the coupling strength.Finally, the RG equations are solved numerically for zero temperature including the subleading corrections found before. As expected, the subleading corrections have no impact on the decoherence rate and the conductance in the weak coupling regime. On the other hand, it is found that they lead to strong deviations from the results of the analytic leading logarithmic approximation if the bias voltage approaches the Kondo temperature. Generally, it is found that the subleading corrections lead to a saturation of the decoherence rate and the conductance to some finite value. However, for the numerical solution a numerical regularization parameter has to be introduced. It turns out that the saturation value found depends on its value, so no statements on the precise value of the decoherence rate and the current can be made in this regime.
We investigate a quantum dot (Anderson impurity) coupled to metallic leads, with a time-periodic voltage bias across the device. Using a time-dependent Schrieffer-Wolff transformation, we show that the Floquet Hamiltonian of the model can be mapped onto a two-channel Kondo model, in which the impurity is screened by separate conduction bands corresponding to parity-even and odd superpositions of the metallic leads. By changing the frequency and amplitude of the perturbation, one can tune the system to a quantum critical point with symmetric coupling of the impurity to both channels. For the understanding of the driven state, energy absorption from the drive must be considered: Although the absorption at the impurity is balanced by the energy flow into the conduction band, locally it leads to non-thermal distribution functions which can have a detrimental effect on the Kondo physics. However, a numerical simulation demonstrates that the absorption can be systematically suppressed at a fixed value of the induced couplings by increasing the frequency, so that the time-averaged dynamics in the driven one-channel Anderson model can be used to study the critical behavior of the two-channel model.