1997/10/19 by I. L. Aleǐner, I. L. Aleiner, L. I. Glazman · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Quantum many-body systems #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.57.9608
34 two-column pages, latex, 9 .eps figures included
arxiv created 1997/10/19 · openalex publication_date 1998/04/15 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the Coulomb blockade in a chaotic quantum dot connected to a lead by a single channel at nearly perfect transmission. We take into account quantum fluctuations of the dot charge and a finite level spacing for electron states within the dot. Mesoscopic fluctuations of thermodynamic and transport properties in the Coulomb blockade regime exist at any transmission coefficient. In contrast to the previous theories, we show that by virtue of these mesoscopic fluctuations, the Coulomb blockade is not destroyed completely even at perfect transmission. The oscillatory dependence of all the observable characteristics on the gate voltage is preserved, its period is still defined by the charge of a single electron. However, phases of those oscillations at perfect transmission are random; because of the randomness, the Coulomb blockade shows up not in the averages but in the correlation functions of the fluctuating observables (e.g., capacitance or tunneling conductance). This phenomenon may be called ``mesoscopic charge quantization.''