Transport through Quasiballistic Quantum Wires: The Role of Contacts

We model one-dimensional transport through each open channel of a quantum wire by a Luttinger liquid with different interaction parameters for the leads, the contacts, and the wire, and with two barriers at the contacts. We show that this simple model explains several features of recent experiments, such as the flat conductance plateaus observed at finite temperatures and lengths, and universal conductance corrections in different channels. We discuss the possibility of seeing resonancelike features at very low temperatures.