Quantum criticality perspective on the charging of narrow quantum-dot levels

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Apr 3;102(13):136805. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.136805. Epub 2009 Apr 1.

Abstract

Understanding the charging of exceptionally narrow levels in quantum dots in the presence of interactions remains a challenge within mesoscopic physics. We address this fundamental question in the generic model of a narrow level capacitively coupled to a broad one. Using bosonization we show that for arbitrary capacitive coupling charging can be described by an analogy to the magnetization in the anisotropic Kondo model, featuring a low-energy crossover scale that depends in a power-law fashion on the tunneling amplitude to the level. Explicit analytical expressions for the exponent are derived and confirmed by detailed numerical and functional renormalization-group calculations.