arXiv subjects

A. D. Mirlin

Publications and source records attributed to A. D. Mirlin.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Collision-dominated nonlinear hydrodynamics in graphene

We present an effective hydrodynamic theory of electronic transport in graphene in the interaction-dominated regime. We derive the emergent hydrodynamic description from the microscopic Boltzmann kinetic equation taking into account dissipation due to Coulomb interaction and find the viscosity of Dirac fermions in graphene for arbitrary densities. The viscous terms have a dramatic effect on transport coefficients in clean samples at high temperatures. Within linear response, we show that viscosity manifests itself in the nonlocal conductivity as well as dispersion of hydrodynamic plasmons. Beyond linear response, we apply the derived nonlinear hydrodynamics to the problem of hot spot relaxation in graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Measuring the Luttinger liquid parameter with shot noise

We explore the low-frequency noise of interacting electrons in a one-dimensional structure (quantum wire or interaction-coupled edge states) with counterpropagating modes, assuming a single channel in each direction. The system is driven out of equilibrium by a quantum point contact (QPC) with an applied voltage, which induces a double-step energy distribution of incoming electrons on one side of the device. A second QPC serves to explore the statistics of outgoing electrons. We show that measurement of a low-frequency noise in such a setup allows one to extract the Luttinger liquid constant $K$ which is the key parameter characterizing an interacting 1D system. We evaluate the dependence of the zero-frequency noise on $K$ and on parameters of both QPCs (transparencies and voltages).

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Superconductor-insulator transitions: Phase diagram and magnetoresistance

Influence of disorder-induced Anderson localization and of electron-electron interaction on superconductivity in two-dimensional systems is explored. We determine the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$, the temperature dependence of the resistivity, the phase diagram, as well as the magnetoresistance. The analysis is based on the renormalization group (RG) for a nonlinear sigma model. Derived RG equations are valid to the lowest order in disorder but for arbitrary electron-electron interaction strength in particle-hole and Cooper channels. Systems with preserved and broken spin-rotational symmetry are considered, both with short-range and with long-range (Coulomb) interaction. In the cases of short-range interaction, we identify parameter regions where the superconductivity is enhanced by localization effects. Our RG analysis indicates that the superconductor-insulator transition is controlled by a fixed point with a resistivity $R_c$ of the order of the quantum resistance $R_q = h/ 4e^2$. When a transverse magnetic field is applied, we find a strong nonmonotonous magnetoresistance for temperatures below $T_c$.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Equilibration in a chiral Luttinger liquid

We explore the weak-strong-coupling Bose-Fermi duality in a model of a single-channel integer or fractional quantum Hall edge state with a finite-range interaction. The system is described by a chiral Luttinger liquid with non-linear dispersion of bosonic and fermonic excitations. We use the bosonization, a unitary transformation, and a refermionization to map the system onto that of weakly interacting fermions at low temperature $T$ or weakly interacting bosons at high $T$. We calculate the equilibration rate which is found to scale with temperature as $T^5$ and $T^{14}$ in the high-temperature ("bosonic") and the low-temperature ("fermonic") regimes, respectively. The relaxation rate of a hot particle with the momentum $k$ in the fermonic regime scales as $k^7T^7$.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Multifractality and electron-electron interaction at Anderson transitions

Mesoscopic fluctuations and correlations of the local density of states are studied near metal-insulator transitions in disordered interacting electronic systems. We show that the multifractal behavior of the local density of states survives in the presence of Coulomb interaction. We calculate the spectrum of multifractal exponents in $2+ε$ spatial dimensions for symmetry classes characterized by broken (partially or fully) spin-rotation invariance and show that it differs from that in the absence of interaction. We also estimate the multifractal exponents at the Anderson metal-insulator transition in 2D systems with preserved spin-rotation invariance. Our results for multifractal correlations of the local density of states are in qualitative agreement with recent experimental findings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Hydrodynamics in graphene: Linear-response transport

We develop a hydrodynamic description of transport properties in graphene-based systems which we derive from the quantum kinetic equation. In the interaction-dominated regime, the collinear scattering singularity in the collision integral leads to fast unidirectional thermalization and allows us to describe the system in terms of three macroscopic currents carrying electric charge, energy, and quasiparticle imbalance. Within this "three-mode" approximation we evaluate transport coeffcients in monolayer graphene as well as in double-layer graphene-based structures. The resulting classical magnetoresistance is strongly sensitive to the interplay between the sample geometry and leading relaxation processes. In small, mesoscopic samples the macroscopic currents are inhomogeneous which leads to linear magnetoresistance in classically strong fields. Applying our theory to double-layer graphene-based systems, we provide microscopic foundation for phenomenological description of giant magnetodrag at charge neutrality and find magnetodrag and Hall drag in doped graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Quantum interference in HgTe structures

We study quantum transport in HgTe/HgCdTe quantum wells under the condition that the chemical potential is located outside of the bandgap. We first analyze symmetry properties of the effective Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang Hamiltonian and the relevant symmetry-breaking perturbations. Based on this analysis, we overview possible patterns of symmetry breaking that govern the quantum interference (weak localization or weak antilocalization) correction to the conductivity in two dimensional HgTe/HgCdTe samples. Further, we perform a microscopic calculation of the quantum correction beyond the diffusion approximation. Finally, the interference correction and the low-field magnetoresistance in a quasi-one-dimensional geometry are analyzed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Half-integer quantum Hall effect of disordered Dirac fermions at a topological insulator surface

The unconventional (half-integer) quantum Hall effect for a single species of Dirac fermions is analyzed. We discuss possible experimental measurements of the half-integer Hall conductance $g_{xy}$ of topological insulator surface states and explain how to reconcile Laughlin's flux insertion argument with half-integer $g_{xy}$. Using a vortex state representation of Landau Level wavefunctions, we calculate current density beyond linear response, which is in particular relevant to the topological image monopole effect. As a major result, the field theory describing the localization physics of the quantum Hall effect of a single species of Dirac fermions is derived. In this connection, the issue of (absent) parity anomaly is revisited. The renormalization group flow (RG) and the resulting phase diagram are extensively discussed. Starting values of the RG flow are given by the semiclassical conductivity tensor which is obtained from the Boltzmann transport theory of the anomalous Hall effect.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Conductivity of a generic helical liquid

A quantum spin Hall insulator is a two-dimensional state of matter consisting of an insulating bulk and one-dimensional helical edge states. While these edge states are topologically protected against elastic backscattering in the presence of disorder, interaction-induced inelastic terms may yield a finite conductivity. By using a kinetic equation approach, we find the backscattering rate $τ^{-1}$ and the semiclassical conductivity in the regimes of high ($ω\gg τ^{-1}$) and low ($ω\ll τ^{-1}$) frequency. By comparing the two limits, we find that the parametric dependence of conductivity is described by the Drude formula for the case of a disordered edge. On the other hand, in the clean case where the resistance originates from umklapp interactions, the conductivity takes a non-Drude form with a parametric suppression of scattering in the dc limit as compared to the ac case. This behavior is due to the peculiarity of umklapp scattering processes involving necessarily the state at the "Dirac point". In order to take into account Luttinger liquid effects, we complement the kinetic equation analysis by treating interactions exactly in bosonization and calculating conductivity using the Kubo formula. In this way, we obtain the frequency and temperature dependence of conductivity over a wide range of parameters. We find the temperature and frequency dependence of the transport scattering time in a disordered system as $τ\sim [\max{(ω,T)}]^{-2K-2}$, for $K>2/3$ and $τ\sim [\max{(ω,T)}]^{-8K+2}$ for $K <2/3$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Density of states in a two-dimensional chiral metal with vacancies

We study quantum interference effects in a two-dimensional chiral metal (bipartite lattice) with vacancies. We demonstrate that randomly distributed vacancies constitute a peculiar type of chiral disorder leading to strong modifications of critical properties at zero energy as compared to conventional chiral metals. In particular, the average density of states diverges as $ρ\propto E^{-1} |\ln E|^{-3/2}$ and the correlation length $L_c \propto \sqrt{|\ln E|}$ in the limit $E \to 0$. When the average density of vacancies is different in the two sublattices, a finite concentration of zero modes emerges and a gap in the quasiclassical density of states opens around zero energy. Interference effects smear this gap resulting in exponentially small tails at low energies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Relaxation in Luttinger liquids: Bose-Fermi duality

We explore the life time of excitations in a dispersive Luttinger liquid. We perform a bosonization supplemented by a sequence of unitary transformations that allows us to treat the problem in terms of weakly interacting quasiparticles. The relaxation described by the resulting Hamiltonian is analyzed by bosonic and (after a refermionization) by fermionic perturbation theory. We show that the the fermionic and bosonic formulations of the problem exhibit a remarkable strong-weak-coupling duality. Specifically, the fermionic theory is characterized by a dimensionless coupling constant $λ= m^*l^2T$ and the bosonic theory by $λ^{-1}$, where $1/m^*$ and $l$ characterize the curvature of the fermionic and bosonic spectra, respectively, and $T$ is the temperature.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Relaxation of optically excited carriers in graphene: Anomalous diffusion and Lévy flights

We present a theoretical analysis of the relaxation cascade of a photoexcited electron in graphene in the presence of RPA screened electron-electron interaction. We calculate the relaxation rate of high energy electrons and the jump-size distribution of the random walk constituting the cascade which exhibits fat tails. We find that the statistics of the entire cascade are described by Lévy flights with constant drift instead of standard drift-diffusion in energy space. The Lévy flight manifests nontrivial scaling relations of the fluctuations in the cascade time, which is related to the problem of the first passage time of Lévy processes. Furthermore we determine the transient differential transmission of graphene after an excitation by a laser pulse taking into account the fractional kinetics of the relaxation dynamics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Tunneling into the localized phase near Anderson transitions with Coulomb interaction

We study the tunneling density of states (TDOS) of a disordered electronic system with Coulomb interaction on the insulating side of the Anderson localization transition. The average TDOS shows a critical behavior at high energies, with a crossover to a soft Coulomb gap $Δ$ at low energies. We demonstrate that the single-particle excitations experience a localization transition (which belongs to the noninteracting universality class) at an energy $E=\pm E_c$. The mobility edge $E_c$ scales with the distance $μ_c-μ$ from the interacting critical point according to $E_c\propto (μ_c-μ)^{νz}$, where $ν$ and $z$ are the localization-length and the dynamical critical exponents. Local TDOS shows strong fluctuations and long-range correlations which reflect the multifractality associated with interacting and noninteracting fixed points as well the localization of low-energy excitations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Quantum Hall criticality and localization in graphene with short-range impurities at the Dirac point

We explore the longitudinal conductivity of graphene at the Dirac point in a strong magnetic field with two types of short-range scatterers: adatoms that mix the valleys and "scalar" impurities that do not mix them. A scattering theory for the Dirac equation is employed to express the conductance of a graphene sample as a function of impurity coordinates; an averaging over impurity positions is then performed numerically. The conductivity $σ$ is equal to the ballistic value $4e^2/πh$ for each disorder realization provided the number of flux quanta considerably exceeds the number of impurities. For weaker fields, the conductivity in the presence of scalar impurities scales to the quantum-Hall critical point with $σ\simeq 4 \times 0.4 e^2/h$ at half filling or to zero away from half filling due to the onset of Anderson localization. For adatoms, the localization behavior is obtained also at half filling due to splitting of the critical energy by intervalley scattering. Our results reveal a complex scaling flow governed by fixed points of different symmetry classes: remarkably, all key manifestations of Anderson localization and criticality in two dimensions are observed numerically in a single setup.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Giant magneto-drag in graphene at charge neutrality

We report experimental data and theoretical analysis of Coulomb drag between two closely positioned graphene monolayers in weak magnetic field. Close enough to the neutrality point, coexistence of electrons and holes in each layer leads to a dramatic increase of the drag resistivity. Away from charge neutrality, we observe non-zero Hall drag. The observed phenomena are explained by decoupling of electric and quasiparticle currents which are orthogonal at charge neutrality. The sign of magneto-drag depends on the energy relaxation rate and geometry of the sample.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Interaction and disorder effects in 3D topological insulator thin films

A theory of combined interference and interaction effects on the diffusive transport properties of 3D topological insulator surface states is developed. We focus on a slab geometry (characteristic for most experiments) and show that interactions between the top and bottom surfaces are important at not too high temperatures. We treat the general case of different surfaces (different carrier densities, uncorrelated disorder, arbitrary dielectric environment, etc.). In order to access the low-energy behavior of the system we renormalize the interacting diffusive sigma model in the one loop approximation. It is shown that intersurface interaction is relevant in the renormalization group (RG) sense and the case of decoupled surfaces is therefore unstable. An analysis of the emerging RG flow yields a rather rich behavior. We discuss realistic experimental scenarios and predict a characteristic non-monotonic temperature dependence of the conductivity. In the infrared (low-temperature) limit, the systems flows into a metallic fixed point. At this point, even initially different surfaces have the same transport properties. Investigating topological effects, we present a local expression of the $\mathbb Z_2$ theta term in the sigma model by first deriving the Wess-Zumino-Witten theory for class DIII by means of non-abelian bosonization and then breaking the symmetry down to AII. This allows us to study a response of the system to an external electromagnetic field. Further, we discuss the difference between the system of Dirac fermions on the top and bottom surfaces of a topological insulator slab and its non-topological counterpart in a double-well structure with strong spin-orbit interaction.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Multifractality at Anderson transitions with Coulomb interaction

We explore mesoscopic fluctuations and correlations of the local density of states (LDOS) near localization transition in a disordered interacting electronic system. It is shown that the LDOS multifractality survives in the presence of Coulomb interaction. We calculate the spectrum of multifractal dimensions in $2+ε$ spatial dimensions and show that it differs from that in the absence of interaction. The multifractal character of fluctuations and correlations of the LDOS can be studied experimentally by scanning tunneling microscopy of two-dimensional and three-dimensional disordered structures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Dissipationless kinetics of one dimensional interacting fermions

We study the problem of evolution of a density pulse of one-dimensional interacting fermions with a non-linear single-particle spectrum. We show that, despite non-Fermi-liquid nature of the problem, non-equilibrium phenomena can be described in terms of a kinetic equation for certain quasiparticles related to the original fermions by a non-linear transformation which decouples the left- and right-moving excitations. Employing this approach, we investigate the kinetics of the phase space distribution of the quasiparticles and thus determine the time evolution of the density pulse. This allows us to explore a crossover from the essentially free-fermion evolution for weak or short-range interaction to hydrodynamics emerging in the case of sufficiently strong, long-range interaction.

cond-mat.str-el↗