arXiv subjects

Caio H. Lewenkopf

Publications and source records attributed to Caio H. Lewenkopf.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Finite-difference method for transport of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions in a ribbon geometry

We present a numerical method to compute the Landauer conductance of noninteracting two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions in disordered systems. The method allows for the introduction of boundary conditions at the ribbon edges and accounts for an external magnetic field. By construction, the proposed discretization scheme avoids the fermion doubling problem. The method does not rely on an atomistic basis and is particularly useful to deal with long-range disorder, the correlation length of which largely exceeds the underlying material crystal lattice spacing. As an application, we study the case of monolayer graphene sheets with zigzag edges subjected to long-range disorder, which can be modeled by a single-cone Dirac equation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Non-adiabatic Electron Pumping through Interacting Quantum Dots

We study non-adiabatic charge pumping through single-level quantum dots taking into account Coulomb interactions. We show how a truncated set of equations of motion can be propagated in time by means of an auxiliary-mode expansion. This formalism is capable of treating the time-dependent electronic transport for arbitrary driving parameters. We verify that the proposed method describes very precisely the well-known limit of adiabatic pumping through quantum dots without Coulomb interactions. As an example we discuss pumping driven by short voltage pulses for various interaction strengths. Such finite pulses are particular suited to investigate transient non-adiabatic effects, which may be also important for periodic drivings, where they are much more difficult to reveal.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Disorder and Electronic Transport in Graphene

In this review, we provide an account of the recent progress in understanding electronic transport in disordered graphene systems. Starting from a theoretical description that emphasizes the role played by band structure properties and lattice symmetries, we describe the nature of disorder in these systems and its relation to transport properties. While the focus is primarily on theoretical and conceptual aspects, connections to experiments are also included. Issues such as short versus long-range disorder, localization (strong and weak), the carrier density dependence of the conductivity, and conductance fluctuations are considered and some open problems are pointed out.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Nonlinear conductance in a ballistic Aharonov-Bohm ring

The nonlinear electronic transport properties of a ballistic Aharonov-Bohm ring are investigated. It is demonstrated how the electronic interaction breaks the phase rigidity in a two-probe mesoscopic device as the voltage bias is increased. The possibility of studying interference effects in the nonlinear regime is addressed. The occurrence of magnetic feld symmetries in higher order conductance coefficients is analyzed. The results are compared with recent experimental data.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Nonlinear electronic transport in nanoscopic devices: Nonequilibrium Green's functions versus scattering approach

We study the nonlinear elastic quantum electronic transport properties of nanoscopic devices using the Nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method. The Green's function method allows us to expand the $I-V$ characteristics of a given device to arbitrary powers of the applied voltages. By doing so, we are able to relate the NEGF method to the scattering approach, showing their similarities and differences and calculate the conductance coefficients to arbitrary order. We demonstrate that the electronic current given by NEGF is gauge invariant to all orders in powers of $V$, and discuss the requirements for gauge invariance in the standard Density Functional Theory (DFT) implementations in molecular electronics. We also analyze the symmetries of the nonlinear conductance coefficients with respect to a magnetic field inversion and the violation of the Onsager reciprocity relations with increasing source-drain bias.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Conductance quantization and transport gap in disordered graphene nanoribbons

We study numerically the effects of edge and bulk disorder on the conductance of graphene nanoribbons. We compute the conductance suppression due to localization induced by edge scattering. We find that even for weak edge roughness, conductance steps are suppressed and transport gaps appear. These gaps are approximately inversely proportional to the nanoribbon width. On/off conductance ratios grow exponentially with the nanoribbon length. Our results impose severe limitations to the use of graphene in ballistic nanowires.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2008

Conductivity and Fano factor in disordered graphene

Using the recursive Green's function method, we study the problem of electron transport in a disordered single-layer graphene sheet. The conductivity is of order $e^2/h$ and its dependence on the carrier density has a scaling form that is controlled solely by the disorder strength and the ratio between the sample size and the correlation length of the disorder potential. The shot noise Fano factor is shown to have a narrow dip near the neutrality point for weak disorder and to develop a nearly doping independent behavior at strong disorder. Our results are in good qualitative and quantitative agreement with experiments and provide a way for extracting microscopic information about the magnitude of extrinsic disorder in graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

g-Factors and Discrete Energy Level Velocities in Nanoparticles

We establish relations between the statistics of g factors and the fluctuations of energy in metallic nanoparticles where spin-orbit coupling is present. These relations assume that the electron dynamics in the grain is chaotic. The expressions we provide connect the second moment of the g factor to the root-mean square ``level velocity'' (the derivative of the energy with respect to magnetic field) calculated at magnetic fields larger than a characteristic correlation field. Our predictions relate readily observable quantities and allow for a parameter-free comparison with experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Decay of the Loschmidt echo in a time-dependent environment

We study the decay rate of the Loschmidt echo or fidelity in a chaotic system under a time-dependent perturbation $V(q,t)$ with typical strength $\hbar/τ_{V}$. The perturbation represents the action of an uncontrolled environment interacting with the system, and is characterized by a correlation length $ξ_0$ and a correlation time $τ_0$. For small perturbation strengths or rapid fluctuating perturbations, the Loschmidt echo decays exponentially with a rate predicted by the Fermi Golden Rule, $1/\tildeτ= τ_{c}/τ_{V}^2$, where typically $τ_{c} \sim \min[τ_{0},ξ_0/v]$ with $v$ the particle velocity. Whenever the rate $1/\tildeτ$ is larger than the Lyapunov exponent of the system, a perturbation independent Lyapunov decay regime arises. We also find that by speeding up the fluctuations (while keeping the perturbation strength fixed) the fidelity decay becomes slower, and hence, one can protect the system against decoherence.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2004

On the classical-quantum correspondence for the scattering dwell time

Using results from the theory of dynamical systems, we derive a general expression for the classical average scattering dwell time, tau_av. Remarkably, tau_av depends only on a ratio of phase space volumes. We further show that, for a wide class of systems, the average classical dwell time is not in correspondence with the energy average of the quantum Wigner time delay.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2003

Open orbits and the semiclassical dwell time

The Wigner delay time is addressed semiclassically using the Miller's S-matrix expressed in terms of open orbits. This leads to a very appealing expression, in terms of classical paths, for the energy averaged Wigner time delay in chaotic scattering. The same approach also puts in evidence the semiclassical incapability to correctly assess the time delay higher moments. This limitation suggests that the use of the semiclassical approximation to quantify fluctuations in scattering phenomena, like in mesoscopic physics, has to be considered with great caution.

cond-mat↗

arXiv2003

Orbital magnetic properties of quantum dots: the role of electron-electron interactions

We study the magnetic orbital response of a system of N interacting electrons confined in a two-dimensional geometry and subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field in the finite temperature Hartree-Fock approximation. The electron-electron interaction is modelled by a short-range Yukawa-type potential. We calculate the ground state energy, magnetization, and magnetic susceptibility as a function of the temperature, the potential range, and the magnetic field. We show that the amplitude and period of oscillations in the magnetic susceptibility are strongly affected by the electron-electron interaction as evidenced in experimental results. The zero-field susceptibility displays both paramagnetic and diamagnetic phases as a function of temperature and the number of confined electrons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2002

On resumming periodic orbits in the spectra of integrable systems

Spectral determinants have proven to be valuable tools for resumming the periodic orbits in the Gutzwiller trace formula of chaotic systems. We investigate these tools in the context of integrable systems to which these techniques have not been previously applied. Our specific model is a stroboscopic map of an integrable Hamiltonian system with quadratic action dependence, for which each stage of the semiclassical approximation can be controlled. It is found that large errors occur in the semiclassical traces due to edge corrections which may be neglected if the eigenvalues are obtained by Fourier transformation over the long time dynamics. However, these errors cause serious harm to the spectral approximations of an integrable system obtained via the spectral determinants. The symmetry property of the spectral determinant does not generally alleviate the error, since it sometimes sheds a pair of eigenvalues from the unit circle. By taking into account the leading order asymptotics of the edge corrections, the spectral determinant method makes a significant recovery.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2001

Semiclassical spatial correlations in chaotic wave functions

We study the spatial autocorrelation of energy eigenfunctions $ψ_n({\bf q})$ corresponding to classically chaotic systems in the semiclassical regime. Our analysis is based on the Weyl-Wigner formalism for the spectral average $C_ε({\bf q^{+}},{\bf q^{-}},E)$ of $ψ_n({\bf q}^{+})ψ_n^*({\bf q}^{-})$, defined as the average over eigenstates within an energy window $ε$ centered at $E$. In this framework $C_ε$ is the Fourier transform in momentum space of the spectral Wigner function $W({\bf x},E;ε)$. Our study reveals the chord structure that $C_ε$ inherits from the spectral Wigner function showing the interplay between the size of the spectral average window, and the spatial separation scale. We discuss under which conditions is it possible to define a local system independent regime for $C_ε$. In doing so, we derive an expression that bridges the existing formulae in the literature and find expressions for $C_ε({\bf q^{+}}, {\bf q^{-}},E)$ valid for any separation size $|{\bf q^{+}}-{\bf q^{-}}|$.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2001

On the semiclassical theory for universal transmission fluctuations in chaotic systems: the importance of unitarity

The standard semiclassical calculation of transmission correlation functions for chaotic systems is severely influenced by unitarity problems. We show that unitarity alone imposes a set of relationships between cross sections correlation functions which go beyond the diagonal approximation. When these relationships are properly used to supplement the semiclassical scheme we obtain transmission correlation functions in full agreement with the exact statistical theory and the experiment. Our approach also provides a novel prediction for the transmission correlations in the case where time reversal symmetry is present.

nlin.CD↗

arXiv2001

Orthogonality Catastrophe in Parametric Random Matrices

We study the orthogonality catastrophe due to a parametric change of the single-particle (mean field) Hamiltonian of an ergodic system. The Hamiltonian is modeled by a suitable random matrix ensemble. We show that the overlap between the original and the parametrically modified many-body ground states, $S$, taken as Slater determinants, decreases like $n^{-k x^2}$, where $n$ is the number of electrons in the systems, $k$ is a numerical constant of the order of one, and $x$ is the deformation measured in units of the typical distance between anticrossings. We show that the statistical fluctuations of $S$ are largely due to properties of the levels near the Fermi energy.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2000

Quantum transport through ballistic cavities: soft vs. hard quantum chaos

We study transport through a two-dimensional billiard attached to two infinite leads by numerically calculating the Landauer conductance and the Wigner time delay. In the generic case of a mixed phase space we find a power law distribution of resonance widths and a power law dependence of conductance increments apparently reflecting the classical dwell time exponent, in striking difference to the case of a fully chaotic phase space. Surprisingly, these power laws appear on energy scales {\em below} the mean level spacing, in contrast to semiclassical expectations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Coulomb blockade conductance peak fluctuations in quantum dots and the independent particle model

We study the combined effect of finite temperature, underlying classical dynamics, and deformations on the statistical properties of Coulomb blockade conductance peaks in quantum dots. These effects are considered in the context of the single-particle plus constant-interaction theory of the Coulomb blockade. We present numerical studies of two chaotic models, representative of different mean-field potentials: a parametric random Hamiltonian and the smooth stadium. In addition, we study conductance fluctuations for different integrable confining potentials. For temperatures smaller than the mean level spacing, our results indicate that the peak height distribution is nearly always in good agreement with the available experimental data, irrespective of the confining potential (integrable or chaotic). We find that the peak bunching effect seen in the experiments is reproduced in the theoretical models under certain special conditions. Although the independent particle model fails, in general, to explain quantitatively the short-range part of the peak height correlations observed experimentally, we argue that it allows for an understanding of the long-range part.

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