Steady-State Currents through Nanodevices: A Scattering-States Numerical Renormalization-Group Approach to Open Quantum Systems

2008/02/29 by Frithjof B. Anders · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum many-body systems #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.101.066804

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 066804 (2008) · 4 pages, 6 figures

openalex publication_date 2008/08/07 · arxiv created 2009/01/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We propose a numerical renormalization group (NRG) approach to steady-state currents through nanodevices. A discretization of the scattering-states continuum ensures the correct boundary condition for an open quantum system. We introduce two degenerate Wilson chains for current carrying left- and right-moving electrons reflecting time-reversal symmetry in the absence of a finite bias V. We employ the time-dependent NRG to evolve the known steady-state density operator for a noninteracting junction into the density operator of the fully interacting nanodevice at finite bias. We calculate the differential conductance as function of V, T, and the external magnetic field.

Citations

• The numerical renormalization group method for quantum impurity systems
• Enhancement of the two-channel Kondo effect in single-electron boxes
• Landauer formula for the current through an interacting electron region
• Impurity and correlation effects on transport in one-dimensional quantum wires
• Real-time dynamics in Quantum Impurity Systems: A Time-dependent Numerical Renormalization Group Approach

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