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B. L. Altshuler

Publications and source records attributed to B. L. Altshuler.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Coulomb "blockade" of Nuclear Spin Relaxation in Quantum Dots

We study the mechanism of nuclear spin relaxation in quantum dots due to the electron exchange with 2D gas. We show that the nuclear spin relaxation rate is dramatically affected by the Coulomb blockade and can be controlled by gate voltage. In the case of strong spin-orbit coupling the relaxation rate is maximal in the Coulomb blockade valleys whereas for the weak spin-orbit coupling the maximum of the nuclear spin relaxation rate is near the Coulomb blockade peaks.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Magnetic field effects in energy relaxation mediated by Kondo impurities

We study the energy distribution function of quasiparticles in voltage biased mesoscopic wires in presence of magnetic impurities and applied magnetic field. The system is described by a Boltzmann equation where the collision integral is determined by coupling to spin 1/2 impurities. We derive an effective coupling to a dissipative spin system which is valid well above Kondo temperature in equilibrium or for sufficiently smeared distribution functions in non-equilibrium. For low magnetic field an enhancement of energy relaxation is found whereas for larger magnetic fields the energy relaxation decreases again meeting qualitatively the experimental findings by Anthore et al. (cond-mat/0109297). This gives a strong indication that magnetic impurities are in fact responsible for the enhanced energy relaxation in copper wires. The quantitative comparison, however, shows strong deviations for energy relaxation with small energy transfer whereas the large energy transfer regime is in agreement with our findings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Spectral fluctuations effects on conductance peak height statistics in quantum dots

Within random matrix theory for quantum dots, both the dot's one-particle eigenlevels and the dot-lead couplings are statistically distributed. While the effect of the latter on the conductance is obvious and has been taken into account in the literature, the statistical distribution of the one-particle eigenlevels is generally replaced by a picket-fence spectrum. Here we take the random matrix theory eigenlevel distribution explicitly into account and observe significant deviations in the conductance distribution and magnetoconductance of closed quantum dots at experimentally relevant temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

The Origin of Degeneracies and Crossings in the 1d Hubbard Model

The paper is devoted to the connection between integrability of a finite quantum system and degeneracies of its energy levels. In particular, we analyze in detail the energy spectra of finite Hubbard chains. Heilmann and Lieb demonstrated that in these systems there are crossings of levels of the same parameter independent symmetry. We show that this apparent violation of the Wigner-von Neumann noncrossing rule follows directly from the existence of nontrivial conservation laws and is a characteristic signature of quantum integrability. The energy spectra of Hubbard chains display many instances of permanent (at all values of the coupling) twofold degeneracies that cannot be explained by parameter independent symmetries. We relate these degeneracies to the different transformation properties of the conserved currents under spatial reflections and the particle-hole transformation and estimate the fraction of doubly degenerate states. We also discuss multiply degenerate eigenstates of the Hubbard Hamiltonian. The wave functions of many of these states do not depend on the coupling, which suggests the existence of an additional parameter independent symmetry.

cond-mat.str-el↗

The breakdown of the Nagaoka phase in the 2D t-J model

In the limit of weak exchange, J, at low hole concentration, the ground state of the 2D t-J model is believed to be ferromagnetic. We study the leading instability of this Nagaoka state, which emerges with increasing J. Both exact diagonalization of small clusters, and a semiclassical analytical calculation of larger systems show that above a certain critical value of the exchange, Nagaoka's state is unstable to phase separation. In a finite-size system a bubble of antiferromagnetic Mott insulator appears in the ground state above this threshold. The size of this bubble depends on the hole concentration and scales as a power of the system size, N.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Coherent electron transport in a Si quantum dot dimer

We show that the coherence of charge transfer through a weakly coupled double-dot dimer can be determined by analyzing the statistics of the conductance pattern, and does not require large phase coherence length in the host material. We present an experimental study of the charge transport through a small Si nanostructure, which contains two quantum dots. The transport through the dimer is shown to be coherent. At the same time, one of the dots is strongly coupled to the leads, and the overall transport is dominated by inelastic co-tunneling processes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quantum transport in parallel magnetic fields: A realization of the Berry-Robnik symmetry phenomenon

We analyze the magnetoconductance of two-dimensional electron and hole gases (2DEGs) subject to a parallel magnetic field. It is shown that, for confining potential wells which are symmetric with respect to spatial inversion, a temperature-dependent weak localization signal exists even in the presence of a magnetic field. Deviations from this symmetry lead to magnetoconductance profiles that contain information on both, the geometry of the confining potential and characteristics of the disorder.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Single parameter scaling in 1-D Anderson localization. Exact analytical solution

The variance of the Lyapunov exponent is calculated exactly in the one-dimensional Anderson model with random site energies distributed according to the Cauchy distribution. We derive an exact analytical criterion for the validity of the single parameter scaling in this model. According to this criterion, states with energies from the conduction band of the underlying non-random system satisfy single parameter scaling when disorder is small enough. At the same time, single parameter scaling is not valid for states close to band boundaries and those outside of the original spectrum even in the case of small disorder. The obtained results are applied to the Kronig-Penney model with the potential in the form of periodically positioned $δ$-functions with random strengths. We show that an increase in the disorder can restore single parameter scalingbehavior for states from band-gaps of this model.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

A boost to low energy nuclear reactions from preliminary elastic collisions (Carambole collisions)

In conventional nuclear experiments a beam of accelerated nuclei collides with a target nucleus that is surrounded by other nuclei in a molecule, in condensed matter, or in a plasma environment. It is shown that for low collision energies possible nuclear reactions (including deuterium fusion) are strongly boosted by the environment. The effect originates from a chain of preliminary three elastic collisions which transform the projectile-target experiment into one with colliding beams. Firstly, the projectile-target pair of nuclei undergo elastic scattering in which the projectile shares its energy and momentum with the target nucleus. Then the projectile and target nuclei collide with different heavy nuclei from the environment. These latter collisions change the velocities of the target and projectile nuclei and set them again on the collision course. Finally, the same pair of nuclei collide inelastically, this time giving rise to the nuclear reaction. The increased energy of the target nucleus increases the relative velocity up to sqrt 2 times, resulting in a drastic exponential increase of the probability to penetrate the Coulomb barrier and therefore sharply increasing the likelihood of the nuclear reaction. Applications to laser-induced fusion are discussed.

nucl-th↗

On the critical temperature of two-channel Kondo model: Reply to cond-mat/0009283

We discuss the comment by Zarand and Zawadowski (cond-mat/0009283) on our preprint cond-mat/0007430 where it has been shown that the strong coupling regime for the two-channel Kondo model of two level system can be never realized for any realistic microscopic description. The authors of the comment state that the Kondo temperature can be substantially increased due to electron-hole asymmetry. Here we show by direct calculation that the electron-hole asymmetry does not enter the leading logarithmic approximation. Consequently, we disagree with the aforementioned comment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Ground state spin and Coulomb blockade peak motion in chaotic quantum dots

We investigate experimentally and theoretically the behavior of Coulomb blockade (CB) peaks in a magnetic field that couples principally to the ground-state spin (rather than the orbital moment) of a chaotic quantum dot. In the first part, we discuss numerically observed features in the magnetic field dependence of CB peak and spacings that unambiguously identify changes in spin S of each ground state for successive numbers of electrons on the dot, N. We next evaluate the probability that the ground state of the dot has a particular spin S, as a function of the exchange strength, J, and external magnetic field, B. In the second part, we describe recent experiments on gate-defined GaAs quantum dots in which Coulomb peak motion and spacing are measured as a function of in-plane magnetic field, allowing changes in spin between N and N+1 electron ground states to be inferred.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Experimental tests for the relevance of two-level systems for electron dephasing

The relevance of tunneling two-level systems (TLS) for electron dephasing in metals is analyzed. We demonstrate that if the concentration of TLS is sufficient to cause the observed dephasing rate, one also should expect quite substantial effects in the specific heat and ultrasound attenuation. In both cases TLS contribution should dominate the electronic one at low enough temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

"Colliding beam" enhancement mechanism of deuteron-deuteron fusion reactions in matter

We suggest a ``ping-pong'' mechanism of enhancement for fusion reactions between a low energy external deuteron beam and the deuterons in a condensed matter or molecular target. The mechanism is based on the possibility of acceleration of a target deuteron by the Coulomb field of a projectile deuteron with its subsequent rebound from a heavy atom in matter and the following fusion of the two deuterons moving towards each other. This effectively converts the fixed target process into a colliding beam reaction. In a simple limiting case this reduces the negative penetrability exponent by a factor of $\sqrt{2}$. We also discuss a contribution given by ``zero oscillations'' of a bound target deuteron. The proposed mechanism is expected to be efficient in compounds with target deuterons localized in the vicinity of heavy atoms.

nucl-th↗

Weak-localization type description of conduction in the "anomalous" metallic state

This paper is devoted to the temperature dependence of the resistivity in Si- MOS samples over the wide range of densities in the ``metallic phase'' (n>n_c) but not too close to the critical density n_c. Three domains of different behavior in ρ(T) are identified. These are: [i] quantum domain of `low-temperatures', where a logarithmic T-dependence of ρ(with $dρ/dT<0$) dominates; [ii] semi-classical domain of `high-temperatures', in which Drude resistivity strongly varies with T (with dρ/dT>0); and [ii] crossover between the former two, where a linear T-dependence dominates (with dρ/dT>0). In the crossover regime and at higher densities (n>20x10^{11}/cm^2), ρ(T) goes through a minimum at temperature T_{min}. Both the absolute value of T_{min} and its dependence on density are found to be in an agreement with the conventional weak-localization theory. For n smaller than \sim 20x10^{11}/cm^2, the theoretical estimate for T_{min} falls outside the experimentally accessible temperature range. This explains the absence of the minimum at these densities in the data. In total, over the two decades in the temperature (domains [ii] and [iii]), the two semiclassical effects mimic the metallic like transport properties. Our analysis shows that the behaviour of ρ(T) in the region of ρ<< h/e^2 can be described phenomenologically in terms of the conventional weak-localization theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

Kondo Temperature for the Two-Channel Kondo Models of Tunneling Centers

The possibility for a two-channel Kondo ($2CK$) non Fermi liquid state to appear in a metal as a result of the interaction between electrons and movable structural defects is revisited. As usual, the defect is modeled by a heavy particle moving in an almost symmetric double-well potential (DWP). Taking into account only the two lowest states in DWP is known to lead to a Kondo-like Hamiltonian with rather low Kondo temperature, $T_K$. We prove that, in contrast to previous believes, the contribution of higher excited states in DWP does not enhance $T_K$. On the contrary, $T_K$ is reduced by three orders of magnitude as compared with the two-level model: the prefactor in $T_K$ is determined by the spacing between the second and the third levels in DWP rather than by the electron Fermi energy. Moreover, $T_K$, turns out to be parametrically smaller than the splitting between the two lowest levels. Therefore, there is no microscopic model of movable defects which may justify non-Fermi liquid $2CK$ phenomenology.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quantum Pumping in the Magnetic Field: Role of Discrete Symmetries

We consider an effect of the discrete spatial symmetries and magnetic field on the adiabatic charge pumping in mesoscopic systems. In general case, there is no symmetry of the pumped charge with respect to the inversion of magnetic field Q(B) \neq Q(-B). We find that the reflection symmetries give rise to relations Q(B)=Q(-B) or Q(B)=-Q(-B) depending on the orientation of the reflection axis. In presence of the center of inversion, Q(B) = 0. Additional symmetries may arise in the case of bilinear pumping.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Metal-insulator transition in 2D: resistance in the critical region

The goal of this paper is to highlight several issues which are most crucial for the understanding of the ``metal-insulator transition'' in two dimensions. We discuss some common problems in interpreting experimental results on high mobility Si MOSFETs. We analyze concepts and methods used to determine the critical density of electrons at the metal-insulator transition. In particular, we discuss the origin of the temperature dependence of the resistivity and reasons for this dependence to flatten out at some electron density in the vicinity of the metal-insulator transition. This flattening has recently been proposed to indicate a true quantum phase transition. We suggest an alternative interpretation of this result and demonstrate the consistency of our proposition with the experimental data. One of the main questions, which arise in connection with the transition, is whether or not the metallic state is qualitatively distinct from a conventional disordered Fermi liquid. We analyze the arguments in favor of both affirmative and negative answers to this question and conclude that the experimental results accumulated up-to-date do not provide convincing evidence for the new state of matter characterized by a metallic-like residual conductivity. We also discuss in details the measurement and control of the electron temperature; these issues are crucial for interpreting the low-temperature experimental data.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗