We study charge and spin transport through an interacting quantum wire, caused by backscattering of electrons off an effective impurity potential with a periodic time dependence. The adiabatic regime of this pump for charge and spin is shown to depend on the presence of interactions in the wire. For the noninteracting case, the transported quantities in a period are calculated and found to be adiabatic (independent of the pumping frequency) for all frequencies $\ensuremath{\Omega}\ensuremath{\ll}{v}_{F}/\mathcal{l},$ where
l is the range of the scattering potential and
vF is the Fermi velocity; this result is along the lines of adiabatic pumping in mesoscopic systems. On the other hand, we show that for a wire with repulsive electron-electron interactions, the adiabatic regime is confined to $\ensuremath{\Elzxh}\ensuremath{\Omega}\ensuremath{\ll}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\ensuremath{\Gamma}},$ where ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ is an energy scale set by the backscattering potential. Using symmetry and scaling properties of the quantum wire Hamiltonian, we relate the charge Q and spin S transported through the wire in a period $2\ensuremath{\pi}/\ensuremath{\Omega}$ to an integral involving quasistatic backscattering conductances. We also show that the pumped charge Q (or the spin
S) is quantized in the adiabatic limit if the conductance of the system is zero at the stable fixed point of the renormalization-group (RG) transformations. The quanta transported are given by the winding number of a complex coupling $\ensuremath{\Gamma}(\ensuremath{\Omega}t)$ as it traverses a closed path
C enclosing the origin $\ensuremath{\Gamma}=0.$ No adiabatic charge or spin is transported when the RG fixed point corresponds to a perfectly conducting wire, or if the path
C does not enclose the point $\ensuremath{\Gamma}=0.$ By contrast, for a RG marginal conductance---which is the case for noninteracting electrons---the charge transported in a cycle is not quantized, rather it is proportional to the area enclosed by the path or circuit
C, in agreement with previous studies of noninteracting mesoscopic systems. Finite size, temperature, and frequency effects on the transported quantities follow from the relation between adiabatic transport coefficients (backscattering conductances) and the quasistatic conductance of the system.
We theoretically investigate transport in a spin-incoherent one-dimensional electron system, which may be realized in quantum wires at low-electron density and finite temperature. Both the pure and disordered cases are considered, both in finite wires and in the thermodynamic limit. The effect of Fermi-liquid leads attached to the finite-length system is also addressed. In the infinite system, we find a phase diagram identical to that obtained for a spinless Luttinger liquid, provided we make the identification
g=2gc, where
g is the interaction parameter in a spinless Luttinger liquid and
gc is the interaction parameter of the charge sector of a Luttinger-liquid theory for electrons with spin. For a finite-length wire attached to Fermi-liquid leads, the transport depends on the details of the disorder in the wire. A simple picture for the crossover from the spin-incoherent regime to the spin-coherent regime as the temperature is varied is also discussed, as well as some physical implications.
The charge transport of a (Tomonaga-)Luttinger liquid with tunnel barriers exhibits universal scaling: the current-voltage curves measured at various temperatures collapse into a single curve upon rescaling. The exponent characterizing this single curve can be used to extract the strength of electron-electron interaction. Motivated by a recent experiment on InAs nanowires [Y. Sato et al., Phys. Rev. B 99, 155304 (2019)], we theoretically investigate the analogous behavior of a spin-orbit-coupled Luttinger liquid. We find that the scaling exponent differs for different impurity strengths, being weak (disorder potential) or strong (tunnel barriers), and their positions, either in the bulk or near the edge of the wire. For each case we quantify the exponent of the universal scaling and its modification due to the spin-orbit coupling. Our findings serve as a guide in the determination of the interaction strength of quasi-one-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled quantum wires from transport measurements.
We develop a detailed theory for spin transport in a one-dimensional quantum wire described by Luttinger-liquid theory. A hydrodynamic description of the quantum wire is supplemented by boundary conditions, taking into account the exchange coupling between the magnetization of ferromagnetic reservoirs and the boundary magnetization in the wire. Spin-charge separation is shown to imply drastic and qualitative consequences for spin-dependent transport. In particular, the spin accumulation effect is quenched except for fine-tuned parameter regimes. We propose several feasible setups involving an external magnetic field to detect this phenomenon in transport experiments on single-wall carbon nanotubes. In addition, electron-electron backscattering processes, which do not have an important effect on thermodynamic properties or charge transport, are shown to modify spin-dependent transport through long quantum wires in a crucial way.
We study the current produced in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid by an applied bias and by weak, pointlike impurity potentials which are oscillating in time. We use bosonization to perturbatively calculate the current up to second order in the impurity potentials. In the regime of small bias and low pumping frequency, both the dc and ac components of the current have power-law dependences on the bias and pumping frequencies with an exponent $2K\ensuremath{-}1$ for spinless electrons, where
K is the interaction parameter. For
K<1∕2, the current grows large for special values of the bias. For noninteracting electrons with
K=1, our results agree with those obtained using Floquet scattering theory for Dirac fermions. We also discuss the cases of extended impurities and of spin-
1∕2 electrons.