Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:cond-mat/9711070 · Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Quasi-Andreev reflection in inhomogeneous Luttinger liquids

Dmitrii L. Maslov, Paul M. Goldbart

Published Apr 15, 1998• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Reflection of charge excitations at the step in the interaction strength in a Luttinger liquid can be of the Andreev type, even the interactions are purely repulsive. The region with stronger repulsion plays the role of a normal metal in a normal-metal/superconductor junction, whereas the region with weaker repulsion plays the role of a superconductor. It is shown that this quasi-Andreev reflection leads to a number of proximitylike effects, including the local enhancement (suppression) of superconducting fluctuations on the quasinormal (quasisuperconducting) side of the step and significant modification of the local density of states, as well as others. The observable consequences of these proximity effects are analyzed for the case of single- and two-particle tunneling from a normal-metal or superconducting tip into an inhomogeneous Luttinger-liquid wire.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.57.9879

Related papers

Josephson current and proximity effect in Luttinger liquids

Dmitrii L. Maslov, Michael Stone, Paul M. Goldbart +1 more

A theory describing a one-dimensional Luttinger liquid in contact with a superconductor is developed. Boundary conditions for the fermion fields describing Andreev reflection at the contacts are derived and used to construct a bosonic representation of the fermions. The Josephson current through a superconductor/Luttinger liquid/superconductor junction is considered for both perfectly and poorly transmitting interfaces. In the former case, the Josephson current at low temperatures is found to be essentially unaffected by electron-electron interactions. In the latter case, significant renormalization of the Josephson current occurs. The profile of the (induced) condensate wave function in a semi-infinite Luttinger liquid in contact with a superconductor is shown to decay as a power law, the exponent depending on the sign and strength of the interactions. In the case of repulsive (attractive) interactions the decay is faster (slower) than in their absence. An equivalent method of calculating the Josephson current through a Luttinger liquid, which employs the bosonization of the system as a whole (i.e., superconductor, as well as Luttinger liquid) is developed and shown to give the results equivalent to those obtained via boundary conditions describing Andreev reflection. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.

arXiv:cond-mat/9508020•Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Jan 15, 1996•98 citations

Andreev scattering and Josephson current in a one-dimensional electron liquid

Ian K. Affleck, Jean-Sébastien Caux, Alexandre M. Zagoskin

Andreev scattering and the Josephson current through a one-dimensional interacting electron liquid sandwiched between two superconductors are reexamined. We first present some apparently new results on the noninteracting case by studying an exactly solvable tight-binding model rather than the usual continuum model. We show that perfect Andreev scattering (i.e., zero normal scattering) at the Fermi energy can only be achieved by fine-tuning junction parameters, a fine-tuning which is possible even with bandwidth mismatch between superconductor and normal metal. We also obtain exact results for the Josephson current, which is generally a smooth function of the superconducting phase difference except when the junction parameters are adjusted to give perfect Andreev scattering, in which case it becomes a sawtooth function. We then observe that, even when interactions are included, all low-energy properties of a junction $(E\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta},$ the superconducting gap) can be obtained by ``integrating out'' the superconducting electrons to obtain an effective Hamiltonian describing the metallic electrons only with a boundary pairing interaction. This boundary model provides a suitable starting point for bosonization-renormalization group-boundary conformal field theory analysis. We argue that total normal reflection and total Andreev reflection correspond to two fixed points of the boundary renormalization group. For repulsive bulk interactions the Andreev fixed point is unstable and the normal one stable. However, the reverse is true for attractive interactions. This implies that a generic junction Hamiltonian (without fine-tuned junction parameters) will renormalize to the normal fixed point for repulsive interations but to the Andreev one for attractive interations. An exact mapping of our tight-binding model to the Hubbard model with a transverse magnetic field is used to help understand this behavior. We calculate the critical exponents, which are different at these two different fixed points.

arXiv:cond-mat/0001375•Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Jul 1, 2000•116 citations

Dynamics of One-Dimensional Bose Liquids: Andreev-Like Reflection at Y Junctions and the Absence of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect

Akiyuki Tokuno, Masaki Oshikawa, Eugene Demler

We study one-dimensional Bose liquids of interacting ultracold atoms in the Y-shaped potential when each branch is filled with atoms. We find that the excitation packet incident on a single Y junction should experience a negative density reflection analogous to the Andreev reflection at normal-superconductor interfaces, although the present system does not contain fermions. In a ring-interferometer-type configuration, we find that the transport is completely insensitive to the (effective) flux contained in the ring, in contrast with the Aharonov-Bohm effect of a single particle in the same geometry.

arXiv:cond-mat/0703610•Physical Review Letters•Apr 8, 2008•55 citations

dc and ac Josephson effect in a superconductor–Luttinger-liquid–superconductor system

Rosario Fazio, F. W. J. Hekking, A. A. Odintsov

We calculate both the dc and the ac Josephson current through a one-dimensional system of interacting electrons, connected to two superconductors by tunnel junctions. We treat the (repulsive) Coulomb interaction in the framework of the one-channel, spin-1/2 Luttinger model. The Josephson current is obtained for two geometries of experimental relevance: a quantum wire and a ring. At zero temperature, the critical current is found to decay algebraically with increasing distance d between the junctions. The decay is characterized by an exponent which depends on the strength of the interaction. At finite temperatures T, lower than the superconducting transition temperature ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}$, there is a crossover from algebraic to exponential decay of the critical current as a function of d, at a distance of the order of \ensuremath{\Elzxh}${\mathit{v}}_{\mathit{F}}$/${\mathit{k}}_{\mathit{BT}}$. Moreover, the dependence of critical current on temperature shows nonmonotonic behavior. If the Luttinger liquid is confined to a ring of circumference L, coupled capacitively to a gate voltage and threaded by a magnetic flux, the Josephson current shows remarkable parity effects under the variation of these parameters. For some values of the gate voltage and applied flux, the ring acts as a \ensuremath{\pi} junction. These features are robust against thermal fluctuations up to temperatures on the order of \ensuremath{\Elzxh}${\mathit{v}}_{\mathit{F}}$/${\mathit{k}}_{\mathit{BL}}$. For the wire geometry, we have also studied the ac-Josephson effect. The amplitude and the phase of the time-dependent Josephson current are affected by electron-electron interactions. Specifically, the amplitude shows pronounced oscillations as a function of the bias voltage due to the difference between the velocities of spin and charge excitations in the Luttinger liquid. Therefore, the ac-Josephson effect can be used as a tool for the observation of spin-charge separation. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.

arXiv:cond-mat/9509135•Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Mar 1, 1996•47 citations

Transport in a one-dimensional wire connected to leads and proximity effects

Inès Safi A, Heinz J. Schulz

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 $u,K$, 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 $K$ 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.

arXiv:cond-mat/9711082•Nov 10, 1997•0 citations

Anomalous Density of States of a Luttinger Liquid in Contact with a Superconductor

Carsten Winkelholz, Rosario Fazio, F. W. J. Hekking +1 more

We study the frequency and space dependence of the local tunneling density of states (DOS) of a Luttinger liquid (LL) connected to a superconductor. This coupling strongly modifies the single-particle properties of the LL. It significantly enhances the DOS near the Fermi level, whereas this quantity vanishes as a power law for an isolated LL. The enhancement is due to the interplay between electron-electron interactions and multiple backscattering processes of low-energy electrons at the interface between the LL and the superconductor. This anomalous behavior extends over large distances from the interface and may be detected by coupling normal probes to the system.

arXiv:cond-mat/9605107•Physical Review Letters•Oct 7, 1996•40 citations
Reflection of charge excitations at the step in the interaction strength in a Luttinger liquid can be of the Andreev type, even the interactions are purely repulsive. The region with stronger repulsion plays the role of a normal metal in a normal-metal/superconductor junction, whereas the region with weaker repulsion plays the role of a superconductor. It is shown that this quasi-Andreev reflection leads to a number of proximitylike effects, including the local enhancement (suppression) of superconducting fluctuations on the quasinormal (quasisuperconducting) side of the step and significant modification of the local density of states, as well as others. The observable consequences of these proximity effects are analyzed for the case of single- and two-particle tunneling from a normal-metal or superconducting tip into an inhomogeneous Luttinger-liquid wire.
A theory describing a one-dimensional Luttinger liquid in contact with a superconductor is developed. Boundary conditions for the fermion fields describing Andreev reflection at the contacts are derived and used to construct a bosonic representation of the fermions. The Josephson current through a superconductor/Luttinger liquid/superconductor junction is considered for both perfectly and poorly transmitting interfaces. In the former case, the Josephson current at low temperatures is found to be essentially unaffected by electron-electron interactions. In the latter case, significant renormalization of the Josephson current occurs. The profile of the (induced) condensate wave function in a semi-infinite Luttinger liquid in contact with a superconductor is shown to decay as a power law, the exponent depending on the sign and strength of the interactions. In the case of repulsive (attractive) interactions the decay is faster (slower) than in their absence. An equivalent method of calculating the Josephson current through a Luttinger liquid, which employs the bosonization of the system as a whole (i.e., superconductor, as well as Luttinger liquid) is developed and shown to give the results equivalent to those obtained via boundary conditions describing Andreev reflection. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Andreev scattering and the Josephson current through a one-dimensional interacting electron liquid sandwiched between two superconductors are reexamined. We first present some apparently new results on the noninteracting case by studying an exactly solvable tight-binding model rather than the usual continuum model. We show that perfect Andreev scattering (i.e., zero normal scattering) at the Fermi energy can only be achieved by fine-tuning junction parameters, a fine-tuning which is possible even with bandwidth mismatch between superconductor and normal metal. We also obtain exact results for the Josephson current, which is generally a smooth function of the superconducting phase difference except when the junction parameters are adjusted to give perfect Andreev scattering, in which case it becomes a sawtooth function. We then observe that, even when interactions are included, all low-energy properties of a junction $(E\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta},$ the superconducting gap) can be obtained by ``integrating out'' the superconducting electrons to obtain an effective Hamiltonian describing the metallic electrons only with a boundary pairing interaction. This boundary model provides a suitable starting point for bosonization-renormalization group-boundary conformal field theory analysis. We argue that total normal reflection and total Andreev reflection correspond to two fixed points of the boundary renormalization group. For repulsive bulk interactions the Andreev fixed point is unstable and the normal one stable. However, the reverse is true for attractive interactions. This implies that a generic junction Hamiltonian (without fine-tuned junction parameters) will renormalize to the normal fixed point for repulsive interations but to the Andreev one for attractive interations. An exact mapping of our tight-binding model to the Hubbard model with a transverse magnetic field is used to help understand this behavior. We calculate the critical exponents, which are different at these two different fixed points.
We study one-dimensional Bose liquids of interacting ultracold atoms in the Y-shaped potential when each branch is filled with atoms. We find that the excitation packet incident on a single Y junction should experience a negative density reflection analogous to the Andreev reflection at normal-superconductor interfaces, although the present system does not contain fermions. In a ring-interferometer-type configuration, we find that the transport is completely insensitive to the (effective) flux contained in the ring, in contrast with the Aharonov-Bohm effect of a single particle in the same geometry.
We calculate both the dc and the ac Josephson current through a one-dimensional system of interacting electrons, connected to two superconductors by tunnel junctions. We treat the (repulsive) Coulomb interaction in the framework of the one-channel, spin-1/2 Luttinger model. The Josephson current is obtained for two geometries of experimental relevance: a quantum wire and a ring. At zero temperature, the critical current is found to decay algebraically with increasing distance d between the junctions. The decay is characterized by an exponent which depends on the strength of the interaction. At finite temperatures T, lower than the superconducting transition temperature Tc{\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{c}}Tc​, there is a crossover from algebraic to exponential decay of the critical current as a function of d, at a distance of the order of \ensuremath{\Elzxh}vF{\mathit{v}}_{\mathit{F}}vF​/kBT{\mathit{k}}_{\mathit{BT}}kBT​. Moreover, the dependence of critical current on temperature shows nonmonotonic behavior. If the Luttinger liquid is confined to a ring of circumference L, coupled capacitively to a gate voltage and threaded by a magnetic flux, the Josephson current shows remarkable parity effects under the variation of these parameters. For some values of the gate voltage and applied flux, the ring acts as a \ensuremath{\pi} junction. These features are robust against thermal fluctuations up to temperatures on the order of \ensuremath{\Elzxh}vF{\mathit{v}}_{\mathit{F}}vF​/kBL{\mathit{k}}_{\mathit{BL}}kBL​. For the wire geometry, we have also studied the ac-Josephson effect. The amplitude and the phase of the time-dependent Josephson current are affected by electron-electron interactions. Specifically, the amplitude shows pronounced oscillations as a function of the bias voltage due to the difference between the velocities of spin and charge excitations in the Luttinger liquid. Therefore, the ac-Josephson effect can be used as a tool for the observation of spin-charge separation. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
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.
We study the frequency and space dependence of the local tunneling density of states (DOS) of a Luttinger liquid (LL) connected to a superconductor. This coupling strongly modifies the single-particle properties of the LL. It significantly enhances the DOS near the Fermi level, whereas this quantity vanishes as a power law for an isolated LL. The enhancement is due to the interplay between electron-electron interactions and multiple backscattering processes of low-energy electrons at the interface between the LL and the superconductor. This anomalous behavior extends over large distances from the interface and may be detected by coupling normal probes to the system.