Colloquia and Seminar Series
 
 
 
  Colloquia Series

Conductance of a Quantum Wire in the Wigner Crystal Regime

Konstantin Matveev

Argonne National Laboratory

We study the effect of Coulomb interactions on the conductance of a single-mode quantum wire connecting two bulk leads. When the density of electrons in the wire is very low, they arrange in a finite-length Wigner crystal. In this regime the electron spins form an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain with exponentially small coupling J. An electric current in the wire perturbs the spin chain and gives rise to a temperature-dependent contribution of the spin subsystem to the resistance.