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arXiv:cond-mat/9911459 · Physical Review Letters

Scaling at the Chaos Threshold for Interacting Electrons in a Quantum Dot

X. Leyronas, P. G. Silvestrov, C. W. J. Beenakker

Published Apr 10, 2000• 23 citations
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Abstract

The chaotic mixing by random two-body interactions of many-electron Fock states in a confined geometry is investigated. Two regimes are distinguished in the dependence of the typical number of Fock states that are mixed into an eigenstate on the interaction strength V, the excitation energy varepsilon, and the level spacing Delta. In both regimes the number is large (indicating delocalization in Fock space). However, only the large- V regime is described by the golden rule (indicating chaotic mixing). The crossover region is characterized by a maximum in a scaling function that becomes more pronounced with increasing excitation energy. The scaling parameter that governs the transition is (varepsilonV/Delta(2))ln(Delta/V).

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.84.3414

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The chaotic mixing by random two-body interactions of many-electron Fock states in a confined geometry is investigated. Two regimes are distinguished in the dependence of the typical number of Fock states that are mixed into an eigenstate on the interaction strength V, the excitation energy varepsilon, and the level spacing Delta. In both regimes the number is large (indicating delocalization in Fock space). However, only the large- V regime is described by the golden rule (indicating chaotic mixing). The crossover region is characterized by a maximum in a scaling function that becomes more pronounced with increasing excitation energy. The scaling parameter that governs the transition is (varepsilonV/Delta(2))ln(Delta/V).
Integrable quantum systems of finite size are generically robust against weak enough integrability-breaking perturbations, but become quantum chaotic and thermalizing if the integrability breaking is strong enough. We argue that the onset of quantum chaos can be described as a Fock-space delocalization process, with the eigenstates of the integrable system being taken as the Fock states. The integrability-breaking perturbation introduces hopping in this Fock space, and chaos sets in when this hopping delocalizes the many-body eigenstates in this space. Depending on the range of the dominant Fock-space hopping, delocalization can occur either through a crossover or via a transition that becomes sharp in the appropriate large-system dynamic limit. In either case, the perturbation strength at the onset of chaos scales to zero in the usual thermodynamic limit, with a size dependence that we estimate analytically and compute numerically for a few specific models. We also identify two intermediate finite-size-dependent regimes: There is generally an intermediate nonchaotic regime in which integrability is broken strongly enough to produce some systemwide many-body resonances but not enough to thermalize the system. In spatially extended systems (but not in quantum dots) there is also a crossover or transition between chaotic regimes where the ratio of the system size to the mean free path of the quasiparticles of the integrable system is small versus large compared to unity.
We revisit the problem of quantum localization of many-body states in a quantum dot and the associated problem of relaxation of an excited state in a finite correlated electron system. We determine the localization threshold for the eigenstates in Fock space. We argue that the localization-delocalization transition (which manifests itself, e.g., in the statistics of many-body energy levels) becomes sharp in the limit of a large dimensionless conductance (or, equivalently, in the limit of weak interaction). We also analyze the temporal relaxation of quantum states of various types (a ``hot-electron state,'' a ``typical'' many-body state, and a single-electron excitation added to a ``thermal state'') with energies below, at, and above the transition.
The development of quantum chaos in finite interacting Fermi systems is considered. At sufficiently high excitation energy the direct two-particle interaction may mix into an eigenstate the exponentially large number of simple Slater determinant states. Nevertheless, the transition from Poisson to Wigner-Dyson statistics of energy levels is governed by the effective high-order interaction between states very distant in the Fock space. The concrete form of the transition depends on the way one chooses to work out the problem of factorial divergence of the number of Feynman diagrams. In the proposed scheme the change of statistics has a form of narrow phase transition and may happen even below the direct interaction threshold.
The emergence of quantum chaos for interacting Fermi systems is investigated by numerical calculation of the level spacing distribution P(s)P(s)P(s) as a function of interaction strength U and the excitation energy $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ above the Fermi level. As U increases, P(s)P(s)P(s) undergoes a transition from Poissonian (nonchaotic) to Wigner-Dyson (chaotic) statistics and the transition is described by a single scaling parameter given by $Z=(U{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}\ensuremath{-}{u}_{0}){\ensuremath{\epsilon}}^{1/(2\ensuremath{\nu})},$ where u0{u}_{0}u0​ is a constant. While the exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha},$ which determines the global change of the chaos border, is indecisive within a broad range of $0.9\ensuremath{\sim}2.0,$ the finiteness of $\ensuremath{\nu},$ which comes from the increase of the Fock space size with $\ensuremath{\epsilon},$ suggests that the transition becomes sharp as $\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ increases.
A theory of strongly interacting Fermi systems of a few particles is developed. At high excitation energies (a few times the single-particle level spacing) these systems are characterized by an extreme degree of complexity due to strong mixing of the shell-model-based many-particle basis states by the residual two-body interaction. This regime can be described as many-body quantum chaos. Practically, it occurs when the excitation energy of the system is greater than a few single-particle level spacings near the Fermi energy. Physical examples of such systems are compound nuclei, heavy open shell atoms (e.g. rare earths) and multicharged ions, molecules, clusters and quantum dots in solids. The main quantity of the theory is the strength function which describes spreading of the eigenstates over many-particle basis states (determinants) constructed using the shell-model orbital basis. A nonlinear equation for the strength function is derived, which enables one to describe the eigenstates without diagonalization of the Hamiltonian matrix. We show how to use this approach to calculate mean orbital occupation numbers and matrix elements between chaotic eigenstates and introduce typically statistical variables such as temperature in an isolated microscopic Fermi system of a few particles.
Quantum dots with a large Thouless number ggg embody a regime where both disorder and interactions can be treated nonperturbatively using large-NNN techniques (with N=gN=gN=g) and quantum phase transitions can be studied. Here we focus on dots where the noninteracting Hamiltonian is drawn from a crossover ensemble between two symmetry classes, where the crossover parameter introduces a tunable energy scale independent of and much smaller than the Thouless energy. We show that the quantum critical regime, dominated by collective critical fluctuations, can be accessed at this energy scale. The nonperturbative physics of this regime can only be described by the large-NNN approach, as we illustrate with two experimentally relevant examples.