• Open Access

Universal conductance dips and fractional excitations in a two-subband quantum wire

Chen-Hsuan Hsu, Flavio Ronetti, Peter Stano, Jelena Klinovaja, and Daniel Loss
Phys. Rev. Research 2, 043208 – Published 9 November 2020

Abstract

We theoretically investigate a quasi-one-dimensional quantum wire, where the lowest two subbands are populated, in the presence of a helical magnetic field. We uncover a backscattering mechanism involving the helical magnetic field and Coulomb interaction between the electrons. The combination of these ingredients results in scattering resonances and partial gaps which give rise to nonstandard plateaus and conductance dips at certain electron densities. The positions and values of these dips are independent of material parameters, serving as direct transport signatures of this mechanism. Our theory applies to generic quasi-one-dimensional systems, including a Kondo lattice and a quantum wire subject to intrinsic or extrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Observation of the universal conductance dips would identify a strongly correlated fermion system hosting fractional excitations, resembling the fractional quantum Hall states.

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  • Received 24 December 2019
  • Revised 16 October 2020
  • Accepted 20 October 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.043208

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Chen-Hsuan Hsu1, Flavio Ronetti2, Peter Stano1,3,4, Jelena Klinovaja2, and Daniel Loss1,2

  • 1RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland
  • 3Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
  • 4Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 845 11 Bratislava, Slovakia

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Vol. 2, Iss. 4 — November - December 2020

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