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arXiv:cond-mat/0703034 · Physical Review Letters

Tunneling Exponents Sensitive to Impurity Scattering in Quantum Wires

M. Kindermann

Published Aug 13, 2007• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that the scaling exponent for tunneling into a quantum wire in the "Coulomb Tonks gas" regime of impenetrable, but otherwise free, electrons is affected by impurity scattering in the wire. The exponent for tunneling into such a wire thus depends on the conductance through the wire. This striking effect originates from a many-body scattering resonance reminiscent of the Kondo effect. The predicted anomalous scaling is stable against weak perturbations of the ideal Tonks gas limit at sufficiently high energies, similar to the phenomenology of a quantum critical point.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.99.076801

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We study the effect of screening of an impurity charge by conduction electrons on resonant tunneling at arbitrary energy of the impurity level. We examine the exactly solvable model of the resonant level. We find the ground-state solutions of the model at all possible Coulomb interactions. The principle of equivalence between its universal behavior and the Kondo model is proved. However, the dependence of its scale invariant variable on the bare variables has different forms in two different regions of the parameter variations. This means that besides the well-known Kondo-like fixed point of the renormalization at weak Coulomb interaction a new stable point exists. The latter determines a singular low-energy behavior of the impurity. Based on the solution, the tunneling amplitude is calculated. It is shown that for a narrow gap or quasi-one-dimensional junction a severe renormalization of the one-electron half-width ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{0}$ occurs ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{\mathit{R}}$\ensuremath{\propto}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{0}$(${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{0}$/D${)}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}/(1\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}})}$. The comparison with perturbation results is discussed. Finally the conductance of the junction with randomly located impurities is calculated to clarify the crucial role of the non-Fermi-liquid behavior on the resonant tunneling under certain conditions.
We study transport through a one-dimensional quantum wire of correlated fermions connected to semi-infinite leads. The wire contains either a single impurity or two barriers, the latter allowing for resonant tunneling. In the leads the fermions are assumed to be noninteracting. The wire is described by a microscopic lattice model. Using the functional renormalization group we calculate the linear conductance for wires of mesoscopic length and for all relevant temperature scales. For a single impurity, either strong or weak, we find power-law behavior as a function of temperature. In addition, we can describe the complete crossover from the weak- to the strong-impurity limit. For two barriers, depending on the parameters of the enclosed quantum dot, we find temperature regimes in which the conductance follows power laws with ``universal'' exponents as well as nonuniversal behavior. Our approach leads to a comprehensive picture of resonant tunneling. We compare our results with those of alternative approaches.
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We investigate transport through a finite interacting wire connected to noninteracting leads. The conductance of the pure wire is not renormalized by the interactions for any spatial variation of the interaction parameters u,Ku,Ku,K, and not even for Coulomb interactions restricted to the wire. We rigorously relate the conductance to the transmission, that turns out to be perfect. If KKK varies abruptly at the contacts, an electron incident on the wire is reflected into a series of partial spatially separated charges which sum up to unity. For attractive interactions, the reflection at the contact is similar to Andreev reflection on a gapless superconductor. This process affects the density-density or pairing correlation functions: they are enhanced on the bulk of the wire as in an infinite Luttinger liquid, then extend to the external noninteracting leads in a way reminiscent of the proximity effect. The effect of impurities is governed by the wire parameter but is affected by the leads close to the contacts. Our results give a possible explanation to recent experiments on quantum wires by Tarucha et al.