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Eros Mariani

Publications and source records attributed to Eros Mariani.

25 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Electron-vibron coupling in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots

Motivated by recent experiments, we investigate the electron-vibron coupling in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots, starting with the electron-phonon coupling of the underlying graphene layer. We show that the coupling strength depends sensitively on the type of vibron and is strongly sample dependent. The coupling strength becomes particularly strong when inhomogeneity-induced electronic quantum dots are located near regions where the vibronic mode is associated with large strain. Specifically, we find that the longitudinal stretching mode and the radial breathing mode are coupled via the strong deformation potential, while twist modes couple more weakly via a mechanism involving modulation of the electronic hopping amplitudes between carbon sites. A special case are bending modes: for symmetry reasons, their coupling is only quadratic in the vibron coordinate. Our results can explain recent experiments on suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots which exibit vibrational sidebands accompanied by the Franck-Condon blockade with strong electron-vibron coupling.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Franck-Condon blockade in suspended carbon nanotube quantum dots

Understanding the influence of vibrational motion of the atoms on electronic transitions in molecules constitutes a cornerstone of quantum physics, as epitomized by the Franck-Condon principle of spectroscopy. Recent advances in building molecular-electronics devices and nanoelectromechanical systems open a new arena for studying the interaction between mechanical and electronic degrees of freedom in transport at the single-molecule level. The tunneling of electrons through molecules or suspended quantum dots has been shown to excite vibrational modes, or vibrons. Beyond this effect, theory predicts that strong electron-vibron coupling dramatically suppresses the current flow at low biases, a collective behaviour known as Franck-Condon blockade. Here we show measurements on quantum dots formed in suspended single-wall carbon nanotubes revealing a remarkably large electron-vibron coupling and, due to the high quality and unprecedented tunability of our samples, admit a quantitative analysis of vibron-mediated electronic transport in the regime of strong electron-vibron coupling. This allows us to unambiguously demonstrate the Franck-Condon blockade in a suspended nanostructure. The large observed electron-vibron coupling could ultimately be a key ingredient for the detection of quantized mechanical motion. It also emphasizes the unique potential for nanoelectromechanical device applications based on suspended graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Flexural phonons in free-standing graphene

Rotation and reflection symmetries impose that out-of-plane (flexural) phonons of free-standing graphene membranes have a quadratic dispersion at long wavelength and can be excited by charge carriers in pairs only. As a result, we find that flexural phonons dominate the phonon contribution to the resistivity $ρ$ below a crossover temperature T_x where we obtain an anomalous temperature dependence $ρ\propto T^{5/2}_{}\ln T$. The logarithmic factor arises from renormalizations of the flexural phonon dispersion due to coupling between bending and stretching degrees of freedom of the membrane.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Zero-bias anomaly in the tunneling density of states of graphene

In the vicinity of the Fermi energy, the band structure of graphene is well described by a Dirac equation. Impurities will generally induce both a scalar potential as well as a (fictitious) gauge field acting on the Dirac fermions. We show that the angular dependence of the zero-bias anomaly in the spatially resolved tunneling density of states (TDOS) around a particular impurity allows one to distinguish between these two contributions. Our predictions can be tested in scanning-tunneling-microscopy measurements on graphene.

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Probing the Superfluid - Mott Insulating Shell Structure of Cold Atoms by Parametric Excitations

We study the effect of parametric excitations on systems of confined ultracold Bose atoms in periodically modulated optical lattices. In the regime where Mott insulating and Superfluid domains coexist, we show that the dependence of the energy absorbed by the system on the frequency of the modulation serves as an experimental probe for the existence and properties of Mott insulating-Superfluid domains.

cond-mat.other↗

Localized excitations at the Mott Insulator-Superfluid interfaces for confined Bose-Einstein condensates

In this paper we derive the dispersion relation of the surface waves at the interfaces between Mott insulating and Superfluid phases for confined Bose-Einstein Condensates. We then calculate their contribution to the heat capacity of the system and show how its low temperature scaling allows an experimental test of the existence and properties of Mott Insulator-Superfluid domains.

cond-mat.other↗

Geometric phases and quantum entanglement as building blocks for nonabelian quasiparticle statistics

Some models describing unconventional fractional quantum Hall states predict quasiparticles that obey nonabelian quantum statistics. The most prominent example is the Moore-Read model for the $ν=5/2$ state, in which the ground state is a superconductor of composite fermions, and the charged excitations are vortices in that superconductor. In this paper we develop a physical picture of the nonabelian statistics of these vortices. Considering first the positions of the vortices as fixed, we define a set of single-particle states at and near the core of each vortex, and employ general properties of the corresponding Bogolubov-deGennes equations to write the ground states in the Fock space defined by these single-particle states. We find all ground states to be entangled superpositions of all possible occupations of the single-particle states near the vortex cores, in which the probability for all occupations is equal, and the relative phases vary from one ground state to another. Then, we examine the evolution of the ground states as the positions of the vortices are braided. We find that as vortices move, they accumulate a geometric phase that depends on the occupations of the single-particle states near the cores of other vortices. Thus, braiding of vortices changes the relative phase between different components of a superposition, in which the occupations of the single-particle states differ, and hence transform the system from one ground state to another. These transformations are the source of the nonabelian statistics. Finally, by exploring a "self-similar" form of the many-body wave functions of the ground states, we show the equivalence of our picture and pictures derived previously, in which vortex braiding seemingly affects the occupations of states in the cores of the vortices.

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