Static impurity in a mesoscopic system of SU($N$) fermionic matter-waves

Abstract

We investigate the effects of a static impurity, modeled by a localized barrier, in a one-dimensional mesoscopic system comprised of strongly correlated repulsive SU($N$)-symmetric fermions. For a mesoscopic sized ring under the effect of an artificial gauge field, we analyze the energy spectrum, the particle density and the current flowing through the impurity at varying interaction strengths, barrier heights, and number of components. We find that the physics of the system is governed by the competition between effective single-particle process and the formation of a high-stiffness spin-correlated state associated to the phenomenon of fractionalization of the flux quantum characterizing the $N$-component fermionic system. Our findings provide a route to probe the response of SU($N$) fermions to effective magnetic fields; at the same time, they hold significance for fundamental understanding of localized impurity problems.