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# Effect of Al doping on the optical phonon spectrum in Mg1-xAlxB2

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## Abstract

Raman and infrared absorption spectra of Mg1-xAlxB2 have been collected for $`0x0.5`$ in the spectral range of optical phonons. The x-dependence of the peak frequency, the width and the intensity of the observed Raman lines has been carefully analized. A peculiar x-dependence of the optical modes is pointed out for two different Al doping ranges. In particular the onset of the high-doping structural phase previously observed in diffraction measurements is marked by the appearence of new spectral components at high frequencies. A connection between the whole of our results and the observed suppression of superconductivity in the high doping region is established.

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The recent discovery of superconductivity below 39 K in MgB2 has stimulated a great deal of effort among the scientific community and a large number of theoretical and experimental papers have been published within few months. The debate on the origin of this unexpected superconductivity is still open, although both experimental and theoretical  works indicate that MgB2 is a BCS-like system. In this framework, the obvious relevant interaction in the superconducting transition is the electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. Owing to the simple hexagonal structure (space group P6mmm), four zone-center optical modes are predicted for MgB2: a silent B1g mode, the E2g Raman mode, and the infrared active E2u and A2u modes. While the doubly-degenerate E2u and E2g modes are ascribed to in-plane stretching modes of the boron atoms, both non-degenerate A2u and B1g modes involve vibrations along the perpendicular direction (c axis). It is quite a general statement that the E2g mode is expected to allow for the strongest e-ph coupling and then to play a relevant role in superconductivity. Raman experiments carried out on MgB2 have shown that the spectrum is dominated by a quite large and asymmetric band around 600 cm-1, ascribed to the E2g mode. The anomalous width of this phonon peak has been interpreted as a signature of the e-ph coupling.

Up to now, no other isostructural boride (XB2) has shown the peculiar high temperature superconductivity of MgB2. In particular, MgAl2 is not superconducting. Indeed, several studies on the Mg1-xAlxB2 compounds have shown that superconductivity is progressively suppressed for increasing x and vanishes for x$`>`$0.5. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of the effects of Al doping, we have studied the evolution of the phonon spectrum of Mg1-xAlxB2 in the $`0x0.5`$ range by means of both Raman and infrared spectroscopy.

Pure MgB2 and Al doped polycrystalline samples have been synthesized at high temperature by direct reaction of the elements in a tantalum crucible under argon atmosphere. The samples, which show an average grain dimension around 1-2$`\mu `$m, have been characterized by x-ray diffraction and by resistivity measurements, in order to determine, in particular, the x-dependence of the superconductivity transition temperature Tc..

The Raman spectra were measured in back-scattering geometry, using a micro-Raman spectrometer with a CCD detector and an adjustable notch filter. The sample was excited by the 632.8 nm line of a 16 mW He-Ne Laser. The confocal microscope was equipped with a 20X magnification objective which gives a laser spot about 10 $`\mu `$m2 wide at the sample surface. The Raman shift explored ranges between 200 and 1100 cm-1, the low frequency limit being due to the notch filter cutoff. Since the laser spot impinges on a few sample grains, the relative intensities of the observed spectral features were slightly different from point to point, depending on the random orientation of the grains. For each sample, Raman spectra were thus collected from different points and then averaged.

As shown in Fig. 1a, the spectrum of the undoped MgB2 sample is dominated by a band centered around 600 cm-1, in agreement with previous Raman experiments reporting a band centered between 580 and 630 cm-1, characterized by a large width (200-300 cm-1) and a relevant asymmetry. A close inspection of the MgB2 spectrum of Fig. 1a reveals two weak shoulders on the low- and the high- frequency side of the 600 cm-1 band ($`\nu _2`$), around 400 ($`\nu _1`$) and 750 cm-1 ($`\nu _3`$), respectively. Although the origin of the central $`\nu _2`$ band is still questioned, it is generally assigned to the Raman-active mode E2g, to which theoretical predictions attribute a peak frequency ranging from 470 to 660 cm-1. It is worth noticing that further spectral contributions observed in previous Raman experiments have been ascribed to peaks in the phonon density of states (around 430, 620, 710 and 780 cm-1) derived from neutron scattering experiments. In a disordered or defective system, the momentum selection rules can indeed be violated, and the Raman (or infrared absorption) spectrum can reflect the phonon density of states.

The Raman spectrum was fitted by a combination of three contributions, each described by a Damped Harmonic Oscillator (DHO), since this profile has been successfully used in modelling broad phonon line-shapes in strongly correlated systems. The complete fitting function here used is:

$$S(\nu )=[1+n(\nu )]\left[\frac{A\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\nu ^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}+\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{A_i\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }_i}{(\nu ^2\nu _i^2)^2+\nu ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_i^2}\right]$$
(1)
The first term represents a large DHO function centered at $`\nu `$=0. It takes into account the wide unstructured background, which is a common feature of strongly correlated systems such as manganites and cuprates. The second term accounts for N phonon peaks, where $`\nu _i`$, A$`_{i\text{ }}`$and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$ are their peak frequency, amplitude and linewidth, respectively. The quantity n($`\nu `$) is the Bose-Einstein thermal population factor. In Fig. 1a we report the best fit spectrum, the $`\nu _1`$, $`\nu _2`$, and $`\nu _3`$ components, and the tail of the background centered at $`\nu `$=0. As discussed above, the $`\nu _2`$ peak (centered at 605$`\pm `$10 cm-1) can be ascribed to the Eg mode, while the $`\nu _1`$ (at 415$`\pm `$20 cm-1) and $`\nu _3`$ (at 780$`\pm `$30 cm-1) peaks probably reflect optical bands in the phonon density of states.

The spectra of the doped Mg1-xAlxB2 samples are well reproduced by using Eq. (1) if, for x$`>`$0.2, the phonon number N is increased from 3 to 4. In Fig. 1b we report the Raman spectra for different Al doping after background subtraction. The $`\nu _3`$ contribution becomes well detectable in the x=0.08 spectrum. Both its intensity and peak frequency increase on further increasing x. For x$`>`$0.1, a new component ($`\nu _4`$) appears around 850 cm-1 and, for x$`>`$0.25, the $`\nu _3`$ and $`\nu _4`$ peaks become the dominant contributions to the Raman spectrum. It is interesting to note that the spectrum at x=0.5 resembles that of the end-series compound (AlB2), which is dominated by an intense and narrow peak centered around 980 cm-1.

Infrared absorption measurements were performed above 400 cm-1 by using a Bomem MB100 interferometer operating with a resolution of 10 cm-1. Following a standard procedure, we measured the infrared signals transmitted by a pure CsI pellet (Io($`\nu `$)) and by the sample powder dispersed in a CsI pellet (I($`\nu `$)). The optical density $`O_d(\nu )`$=ln(Io($`\nu `$)/I($`\nu `$)) is proportional to the optical conductivity of the sample and thus provides the spectral shape of the sample absorption. When this procedure is employed for measuring a powder metallic sample, the phonon spectrum is strongly reduced in intensity by the screening from free charges, and superimposed to a broad and intense background (see for example the case of metallic La2-xSrxCuO4 powders). The far infrared $`O_d(\nu )`$ of the measured Mg1-xAlxB2 are affected by intense backgrounds (see for example the MgB2 case in Fig. 2a), which prevent reliable fits of the spectra. However, once the background is subtracted, one obtains a clear picture of the effect of Al doping on the far infrared spectrum of Mg1-xAlxB2, as shown Fig. 2b. The x=0 spectrum (see Fig. 2b) can be described by considering a broad peak centered around 460 cm-1, accompanied by a very broad band around 600 cm-1. Since the infrared active E1u and A2u phonons are predicted around 330 and 400 cm-1, the two observed bands might be ascribed to peaks in the phonon density of states, which become infrared active due to disorder, as noted above. Our MgB2 spectrum is qualitatively in agreement with that previously reported, where a broad peak centered around 480 cm-1 is accompanied by further components at higher frequencies. Our data (see Fig. 2b) show that the 460 cm-1 peak becomes more evident with increasing the Al content. For x$`>`$0.17 a new absorption peak appears around 700 cm-1 and strongly increases with further increasing doping. Both Raman and infrared spectra thus give evidence that the Al doping induces substantial modifications of the MgB2 optical properties in the high-doping region. In particular, the appearance of new high-frequency contributions at high doping indicates remarkable structural changes.

A quantitative description of the Al doping effects can be achieved by analyzing the best-fit parameters of the Raman spectra. The $`\nu _1`$ peak does not significantly vary with doping, its peak frequency and width being almost constant in the 0-0.5 x range ($`\nu _1`$415 cm-1, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$100 cm-1). More interesting information can be extracted from the x dependence of the peaks at higher frequencies. In Fig. 3 we report the best fit parameters $`\nu _i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$ (i=2, 3, 4) as a function of x. In discussing these results, we stress that two different structural phases have been observed in x-ray diffraction measurements: a low-doping (LD) phase in the 0$`<`$x$`<`$0.10 range and a high-doping (HD) phase in the x$`>`$0.25 range. The two phases are structurally incompatible and a two phase region (LD + HD) at intermediate x (0.10$`<`$x$`<`$0.25) has been proposed. Novel diffraction studies confirm a structural change around x$`=`$0.10, and transmission-electron-microscopy observations revealed for x$`>`$0.10 the existence of a superstructure, with doubled lattice constant along the c-axis. The existence of three major ordered phases for x$`<`$0.10, at x$`=`$0.30 and at x$`=`$0.50, and an overall disordered phase for 0.10$`<`$x$`<`$0.30 have also been suggested.

As shown in Fig. 3a, where vertical lines at x$`=`$0.10 and at x$`=`$0.25 separate the three regions, $`\nu _2`$ and $`\nu _3`$ are nearly constant in the stable LD region, which is structurally characterized by small variations of the lattice parameters. The onset of the HD phase in the intermediate x-region is marked by the appearance of the new spectral feature ($`\nu _4`$). When the system enters in the pure HD phase, $`\nu _3`$ and $`\nu _4`$ strongly increase with x, while $`\nu _2`$ remains nearly constant. The latter result is well consistent with the assignment of the $`\nu _2`$ peak to the in-plane E2g stretching mode of the boron atoms, since the a (in-plane) lattice parameter do not significantly vary with x.  At the moment, our results do not allow a complete assignment of the observed Raman lines, possible through a polarization analysis of Raman spectra from high-quality single crystals. We just note that the increase of the $`\nu _3`$ and $`\nu _4`$ values, simultaneous to the remarkable compression of the c (out-of-plane) lattice parameter when x increases in the HD phase, suggests that the $`\nu _3`$ and $`\nu _4`$ peaks could be ascribed to out-of-plane vibrations.

As concerning the widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$ reported in Fig.3b, their values are affected by large errors in the LD phase owing to the nearly unstructured Raman spectra (see Fig.1). Bearing in mind the importance of the e-ph interaction on the width of the $`\nu _2`$ (E2g) phonon, the most interesting information is the x dependence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. As a matter of fact, consistently with the observed suppression of superconductivity, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ and thus the el-ph interaction strongly decreases when x increases in the HD phase. The overall decrease of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_4`$ may also reflect the decrease of the e-ph interaction with increasing x.

Although a comparison among the absolute intensities of different spectra may be questionable, a comparative analysis of the peak integrated intensities $`I_i`$ can be safely performed. In Fig. 4a the $`I_2/I_3`$ and $`I_2/I_4`$ values as a function of x are reported. It is well evident that both the ratios decrease for x$`>`$0.25, albeit $`I_2/I_4`$ is much steeper than $`I_2/I_3`$. This result clearly reflects the progressive transformation of the structure from the LD to the HD phase. The comparison between the x-dependence of Tc reported in Fig. 4b  and the intensity ratios reported in Fig. 4a clearly shows the correlation between superconductivity and the phonon structures, i.e. the structural properties of Mg1-xAlxB2. The relevance of the $`\nu _2`$ mode with respect to the $`\nu _3`$ and in particular to the $`\nu _4`$ mode (characteristic of the HD phase) clearly decreases with increasing x in the HD phase, and conversely the transition to the superconducting state tends to be inhibited.

In conclusion, the measured Raman and infrared spectra give clear evidence of the structural difference between the low-doping and the high-doping phases of Mg1-xAlxB2. The x-dependence of the $`\nu _2`$ peak supports its assignment to the E2g mode. Therefore, the remarkable narrowing of the $`\nu _2`$ phonon observed for x$`>`$0.25, implying the decrease of the e-ph interaction, can be related to the suppression of superconductivity. Moreover, the decrease of the critical temperature can be directly related to the decrease of the relative intensity of the $`\nu _2`$ (E2g) mode with respect to the $`\nu _3`$ and $`\nu _4`$ modes which dominate the high-doping phase.

Figure captions

Fig. 1- a) Raman spectrum of MgB2 and the best fit curve from Eq.1 (solid line). The three phonon contributions (solid lines) and the $`\nu =0`$ background (dashed line) are also shown separately. b) The Raman spectra of Mg1-xAlxB2 at x$`=`$0, 0.08, 0.17, 0.25, 0.33, 0.41, 0.50 after background subtraction. The spectra are shifted vertically for clarity.

Fig. 2 -a) Far infrared optical density of MgB2. The intense background is very evident (dashed line). b) Optical densities of Mg1-xAlxB2 at x$`=`$0, 0.17, 0.33, 0.41, 0.45 after background subtraction. The spectra are shifted vertically for clarity.

Fig. 3 - Best fit values of $`\nu _i`$ (a) and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_i`$ (b) (i=2,3,4) as function of x from the analysis of the Raman spectra. Vertical dashed lines indicate the x=0.10 and x=0.25 values.

Fig. 4 - a) Intensity ratios of the peak integrated intensities $`I_2/I_3`$ and $`I_2/I_4`$ as a function of x from the analysis of Raman spectra. b) Tc as a function of x from Ref.16. The vertical dashed lines indicate the x=0.25 value.


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# Particle–Hole Symmetry and the Effect of Disorder on the Mott–Hubbard Insulator

Introduction: The interplay of disorder and interactions is at the heart of many interesting and unexplained phenomena in condensed matter physics. For example, the effects of disorder and interactions in two-dimensional (2d) electronic systems acting separately lead to insulating behavior of the Anderson and Mott kinds, respectively. However, experimental findings on silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) show the occurrence of a conducting phase, which is the result of the combined importance of randomness and interactions. Other examples of situations in which both disorder and interactions are crucial, yet incompletely understood, include the formation of local moments and the behavior of the susceptibility in doped semiconductors, the superconductor–insulator transition and universal conductivity in thin metallic films, and the pinning of flux lines in type–II superconductors.

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that for non-interacting electrons the presence or absence of certain symmetries is crucial in determining the effect of disorder on both transport and thermodynamic properties, as well as critical properties of the localization transition. Recent examples where symmetry considerations are important are given in the context of quantum wires and disordered superconductors, where chiral, time–reversal, and spin–rotation symmetries play an important role.

In this paper, we examine the effect of different types of disorder on both the dynamic and equilibrium thermodynamics of the 2d Hubbard model in the vicinity of half-filling, electron density $`n=1`$. We demonstrate that the presence or absence of particle–hole symmetry determines the effect of randomness on the conductivity and the Mott gap.

The Model and Computational Approach: We consider the following 2d Hubbard Hamiltonian,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣},\sigma }{}}t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}}c_{𝐢\sigma }^{}c_{𝐣\sigma }^{}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤},\sigma }{}}t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}}^{}c_{𝐢\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`U{\displaystyle \underset{𝐣}{}}(n_𝐣{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})(n_𝐣{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}){\displaystyle \underset{𝐣,\sigma }{}}\mu _𝐣n_{𝐣\sigma }.`$ (2)
Here $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}}`$ is a bond–dependent hopping matrix element on near-neighbor sites $`\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}`$, $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}}^{}`$ is a bond–dependent hopping matrix element on next-near-neighbor sites $`\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}`$, $`U`$ is an on–site repulsion, and $`\mu _𝐣`$ is a site-dependent chemical potential. We choose $`P(t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}})=1/\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ for $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}}[t\mathrm{\Delta }_t/2,t+\mathrm{\Delta }_t/2]`$, and zero otherwise, with $`t=1`$ to set our scale of energy. Similarly, $`P(t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}}^{})=1/\mathrm{\Delta }_t^{}`$ for $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}}^{}[t^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_t^{}/2,t^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }_t^{}/2]`$, and $`P(\mu _𝐣)=1/\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu `$ for $`\mu _𝐣[\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu /2,+\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu /2]`$, so that the various $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ measure the disorder strength. We will focus on half–filling where the effects of interactions are most prominent, as evidenced by the formation of antiferromagnetic correlations and a Mott-Hubbard charge gap at low temperatures.

Our computational technique is determinant Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC), an approach which allows us to study much larger numbers of particles than those explored with exact diagonalization (and the two-electron problem). In this method the electron–electron interactions are replaced by a space and imaginary time dependent Hubbard–Stratonovich field. The integral over possible field configurations, which exactly retains the interactions in the problem, is done stochastically and allows us to calculate static and dynamic (Matsubara time) correlation functions at a fixed temperature $`T`$.

The disordered Hubbard model in Eq. (2) is particle–hole (ph) symmetric when $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐤}}^{}=\mu _𝐣=0`$. That is, under the transformation $`c_{𝐢\sigma }^{}(1)^𝐢c_{𝐢\sigma }`$ the Hamiltonian is unchanged, and the system is precisely half–filled for all values of the parameters in $`H`$ and also for all $`T`$. Therefore, while near-neighbor bond and local site disorder both introduce randomness into the system, they differ fundamentally in that site disorder breaks ph–symmetry.

In order to reveal the effects of disorder quantitatively, we will examine the transport by evaluating the temperature-dependent dc–conductivity,

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}\frac{\beta ^2}{\pi }\mathrm{\Lambda }_{xx}(𝐪=0,\tau =\beta /2),$$
(3)
(with $`\beta 1/k_\mathrm{B}T`$) as determined from the current–current correlation function, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{xx}(𝐪,\tau )=j_x(𝐪,\tau )j_x(𝐪,0)`$. Here $`j_x(𝐪,\tau )`$, the $`𝐪,\tau `$-dependent current in the $`x`$-direction, is the Fourier transform of, $`j_x(𝐥)=i_\sigma t_{𝐥+\widehat{x},𝐥}(c_{𝐥+\widehat{x},\sigma }^{}c_{𝐥\sigma }^{}c_{𝐥\sigma }^{}c_{𝐥+\widehat{x},\sigma }^{}).`$ From the one-electron Green function as a function of imaginary time we extract the temperature-dependent density of states at the chemical potential $`N(ϵ=0)`$:

$$N(0)\beta G\left(𝐫=0,\tau =\beta /2\right)/\pi .$$
(4)
These two quantities allow a clear characterization of the transport and thermodynamic properties of the system.

Results: First we discuss the transport properties: in Fig. 1, we exhibit the effect of near-neighbor hopping (bond) disorder on the conductivity. For all disorder strengths $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$, at temperatures greater than a characteristic temperature related to the Mott gap, the system shows metallic behavior with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ increasing upon lowering $`T`$. The conductivity turns down sharply as the temperature drops below a characteristic temperature and the system shows insulating behavior with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ decreasing upon lowering $`T`$. In the case of zero randomness, the perfect nesting of the Fermi surface in 2d leads to antiferromagnetic long range order (AFLRO) in the ground state with and an associated spin density wave gap for arbitrarily small $`U`$ evolving to a Mott gap at larger $`U`$. Hopping disorder reduces AFLRO via the formation of singlets on bonds with large hopping $`t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}}`$ and hence large coupling $`J=t_{\mathrm{𝐢𝐣}}^2/U`$ and ultimately destroys it beyond $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t1.6t`$. The fascinating result we have found is that insulating behavior in the conductivity nevertheless persists to much larger $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$. Moreover from the shift of the maximum in Fig. 1 we deduce that the mobility gap in fact increases with increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$.

The situation is quite different in the case of site disorder, as shown in Fig. 2: at fixed temperature $`T`$, as site disorder $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu `$ is turned on, the conductivity increases, i.e. the Mott insulating state is weakened. At weak disorder, the conductivity drops with decreasing $`T`$, reflecting again the presence of the Mott insulating phase. As the disorder strength becomes large enough to neglect $`U`$, one would expect a similar temperature dependence arising from Anderson insulating behavior. We believe that in all cases the conductivity will ultimately turn over and go to zero at low $`T`$, but we are limited in these simulations to temperatures $`T>W/48`$ because of the fermion sign problem. Nevertheless, the data for site disorder offer a dramatic contrast to that of bond disorder (Fig. 1) where randomness decreases the conductivity.

What is the underlying reason for the different effects of bond and site disorder on the conductivity? There are several obvious differences in the effect of bond and site disorder on local and even longer range spin and charge correlations. Site disorder enhances the amount of double occupancy on the lattice, since the energy cost $`U`$ of double occupancy is compensated by differences in site energies. One explanation of why site disorder increases $`\sigma _{dc}`$ is that the concomitant increase in empty sites leads to more mobility. This destruction of local moments ultimately also leads to the end of antiferromagnetic order. Surprisingly, we find in our simulations that bond disorder has a similar diminishing effect on local moments, suggesting that the difference in the behavior of the conductivity arises from a different origin.

We argue here that particle–hole symmetry is the unifying criterion which underlies and determines the effect of disorder. As emphasized above, site and bond disorder have rather similar effects on the double occupancy. Moreover, the consequences of this effect for $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ are expected to become visible only above a threshold value of disorder strength, whereas we observe effects on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ already for weak disorder. Instead, the key distinction is in the presence or absence of ph–symmetry. In order to explore this conjecture more fully, we have studied two other types of disorder: site disorder that preserves ph–symmetry and bond disorder that breaks ph–symmetry (by including next-near-neighbor hopping).

Particle–hole symmetric site disorder is introduced by adding random chemical potentials to the Hubbard model which couple with opposite sign to the density of up and down electrons, i.e. choose $`\mu _𝐣\mu _{𝐣\sigma }=\sigma \mu _𝐣`$ in (2). This type of disorder represents a random (Zeeman) magnetic field. For $`U=0`$ ph–symmetric site disorder has precisely the same effect as conventional site disorder, since moving in a given random chemical potential landscape or one obtained by reversing all the site energies is entirely equivalent. However the behavior of the conductivity at finite $`U`$ is dramatically different. Fig. 2 shows that ph–symmetric site disorder (with strength $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ^{}`$) has the same effect on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}`$ as bond disorder, i.e. conductivity decreases with increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ^{}`$.

To seek final confirmation of our conjecture, we have also explored the effect of next-near-neighbor (nnn) hopping and randomness therein. Such longer ranging hybridization breaks ph–symmetry on a square lattice, since it connects sites on the same sublattice. We find that such disorder has the same effect as conventional site randomness, i.e. increases the conductivity at finite $`T`$. Thus in all four types of disorder, the behavior of the conductivity falls into the appropriate class based on the preservation or destruction of ph–symmetry, strengthening the evidence that it is this symmetry which is playing the crucial role in determining the effect of randomness on the transport properties.

We now turn to thermodynamic properties. The most direct measure of the Mott gap is from the compressibility, or from the behavior of density $`n`$ as a function of chemical potential $`\mu `$, as shown in Fig. 3. The range of $`\mu `$ where $`n`$ is constant (and the system is incompressible) is a direct measure of the gap in the spectrum. Hopping and ph-symmetric site disorder clearly stabilize the plateau of the density at half–filling. On the other hand, conventional site disorder (with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu =U/2`$) has a compressibility which is indistinguishable (within the computational possibilities) from the clean system.

The density of states (DOS) at the Fermi level $`N(0)`$ gives valuable information on the effect of disorder on the Mott gap. In the pure system, QMC studies have shown that the DOS exhibits a clear Mott gap with $`N(0)0`$ as $`T`$ is lowered to zero. The nonzero values of $`N(0)`$ we obtain at nonzero $`T`$ reflect the small residual slopes in the plateaus in the $`n`$ vs. $`\mu `$ plot (cf. Fig. 3); at lower $`T`$, $`N(0)`$ approaches zero just as the plateaus become perfectly flat. The behavior of $`N(0)`$ at a fixed low $`T`$ as a function of the strength of the various types of disorder is given in Fig. 4. $`N(0)`$ is rather insensitive to ph–symmetric disorder ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_t`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu ^{}`$) and is even reduced by it: the Mott gap persists. On the other hand, ph–symmetry breaking disorder ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mu `$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_t^{}`$) clearly enhances $`N(0)`$, i.e. fills up the Mott gap.

Our results provide a clear numerical demonstration of the key role of particle–hole symmetry. The effects can also be understood qualitatively as follows: In the clean case, at $`n=1`$ and strong coupling, the DOS consists of an occupied lower Hubbard band (LHB) and an unoccupied upper Hubbard band (UHB), separated by a charge gap of the order of $`U`$. In the case of ph–symmetric disorder, the effect of disorder on LHB and UHB is identical. Therefore the Fermi energy remains in the middle of the gap: this enables the insulating behavior and Mott gap to stay intact. A stabilized charge gap for ph–symmetric site disorder is evident since double occupation is strongly suppressed. For nn-hopping disorder a simple argument is less obvious, but the data in Fig. 3 clearly show that these two cases fall into the same class. When ph-symmetry is broken, the LHB and the UHB will be affected differently; different numbers of states will appear at either side of the gap. As a consequence, the Fermi energy ends up in one of the tails of the DOS, resulting in an enhanced $`N(0)`$ (cf. Fig. 4) and increased conductivity (Fig. 2). The fact that the states introduced by disorder are localized  will keep the system in an insulating state (cf. Fig. 2).

Conclusions: In this Letter, we have shown that particle–hole (ph) symmetry plays a decisive role in determining the effect of randomness on transport and thermodynamic properties of the half-filled Hubbard model. By exploring four different types of disorder, of which two preserve ph symmetry and two break it, we demonstrate that a classification by this symmetry allows us to understand the effect of disorder on $`\sigma _{\mathrm{dc}}(T)`$, the charge gap and the compressibility. The presence of ph symmetry is found to have a protective influence on the charge gap.

A related example where symmetry plays a crucial role in the effects of disorder is the case of localization in the superconducting phase, where the quasiparticles are described by a Bogoliubov–de Gennes Hamiltonian. In this case, one can classify the system according to the presence or absence of time reversal and spin rotation symmetries, and it is found in one dimension that in the absence of spin rotation symmetry, the conductance decays algebraically with system size, while in the symmetric case it decays exponentially. Therefore, in this situation as well, the extra spin rotation symmetry leads to a strengthening of insulating behavior.

The question of the behavior of the half–filled fermion Hubbard model as disorder is added is furthermore reminiscent of similar issues in the ph-symmetric boson Hubbard model. At generic densities, it is believed that a new ’Bose glass’ phase arises to intervene in the original ground state phase diagram between superfluid and Mott insulating phases, but the situation at the ph-symmetric tip of the Mott lobe is uniquely different. Our work is a first step in the analysis of the nature of the behavior of the fermionic model.

The authors thank Piet Brouwer, Andreas Ludwig, and George Sawatzky for helpful discussions. The research of RTS is supported by grant NSF–DMR–9985978


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# Short-range spin correlations and pseudogap in underdoped cuprates

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## Abstract

In this paper we show that local spin-singlet amplitude with $`d`$-wave symmetry can be induced by short-range spin correlations even in the absence of pairing interactions. In the present scenario for the pseudogap, the normal state pseudogap is caused by the induced local spin-singlet amplitude due to short-range spin correlations, which compete in the low energy sector with superconducting correlations to make $`T_c`$ go to zero near half-filling.

\]

The recent discovery of pseudogap in underdoped high $`T_c`$ cuprates has challenged condensed matter physicists for several years. The pseudogap behavior is observed as strong suppression of low frequency spectral weight below some characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$ higher than transition temperature $`T_c`$. This anomalous phenomenon has been observed in angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), specific heat, tunneling, NMR, and optical conductivity. One of the most puzzling questions in pseudogap phenomena is why $`T^{}`$ has a completely different doping dependence from $`T_c`$, in spite of their possibly close relation. In this paper we demonstrate that induced local spin-singlet amplitude due to short-range spin correlations can cause a normal state pseudogap with $`d`$-wave symmetry even in the absence of pairing interactions.

First of all we argue that there are two energy scales in the problem, because the pseudogap appears as a crossover phenomenon according to experiments. The low energy (or long distance) physics of antiferromagnetic (AF) and superconducting (SC) correlations is well captured by a static mean-field approach, while the relatively high energy (or short distance) physics of the pseudogap is invisible in such a study. Thus we resort to fluctuation theory in order to describe the dynamical nature of the pseudogap, and to determine $`T^{}`$ and pseudogap size $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$. The mean-field result of the $`tJ`$ model will be used below solely to find the onset of leading correlations, and to compute mean-field AF and SC order parameters for the calculation of local spin-singlet amplitude.

The mean-field $`tJ`$ Hamiltonian reads

$`H_{MF}={\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k},\sigma }{}}\epsilon (\stackrel{}{k})c_{\stackrel{}{k},\sigma }^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},\sigma }4Jm\widehat{m}Js(\widehat{s}+\widehat{s}^{}),`$ (1)
where $`\epsilon (\stackrel{}{k})2tx(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)\mu `$ with $`x`$ the hole density, $`\widehat{m}=1/(2N)_{\stackrel{}{k},\sigma }\sigma c_{\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{Q},\sigma }^{}c_{\stackrel{}{k},\sigma }`$ and $`\widehat{s}=1/N_\stackrel{}{k}\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{k})c_{\stackrel{}{k},}c_{\stackrel{}{k},}`$ with $`N`$ the total number of lattice sites. $`m`$, $`s`$ are mean-field AF, SC order parameters determined from $`m=\widehat{m}`$ and $`s=\widehat{s}`$, respectively. $`\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{k})=\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y`$ and $`\stackrel{}{Q}`$ is the (commensurate) AF wave vector $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ in two dimensions. In this paper we restrict ourselves to a uniform solution which is just enough for our purpose. In a mean-field approximation, mean-field order already sets in when the correlation length reaches roughly one lattice spacing. This forces the above mean-field phase line (Fig. 1(a)) to be interpreted as the onset of the corresponding short-range correlations. We identify $`T_N^{MF}`$ with another crossover temperature $`T^0`$ at which some magnetic experiments such as Knight shift show their maximum. For the parameter ($`t/J=3.0`$) used in this paper, short-range spin correlations disappear at $`x=x_c0.190.20`$ at low temperature.

We introduce spin-singlet correlation function

$`\chi _{pp}(i,\tau )=T_\tau \mathrm{\Delta }_d(i,\tau )\mathrm{\Delta }_d^{}(0,0),`$ (2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_d(i)=\frac{1}{2}_\delta g(\delta )(c_{i+\delta ,}c_{i,}c_{i+\delta ,}c_{i,})`$ with $`g(\delta )=1/2`$ for $`\delta =(\pm 1,0)`$, -1/2 for $`\delta =(0,\pm 1)`$, and 0 otherwise. The spin-singlet correlation function is related to the local spin-singlet amplitude through the sum rule

$`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}\chi _{pp}(q)e^{i\nu _m0^{}}=|\mathrm{\Delta }_d(0)|^2,`$ (3)
where $`q=(\stackrel{}{q},i\nu _m)`$ and $`\nu _m`$ is bosonic Matsubara frequencies. $`T`$ is absolute temperature. In terms of renormalized vertex $`V_{pp}`$, we approximate the spin-singlet correlation function

$`\chi _{pp}(q)={\displaystyle \frac{\chi _{pp}^0(q)}{1V_{pp}\chi _{pp}^0(q)}},`$ (4)
where the irreducible susceptibility is defined as $`\chi _{pp}^0(q)=\frac{T}{4N}_k(\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{k})+\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{k}))^2G^0(qk)G^0(k)`$. $`G^0(k)`$ is the noninteracting Green’s function obtained from Eq. (1) with $`J=0`$. Now the unknown vertex, $`V_{pp}`$, is determined by the sum rule Eq. (3). Hence, an increase in the local spin-singlet amplitude evaluated in the interacting state over that in the noninteracting state leads to a nonvanishing positive value of $`V_{pp}`$, namely, the enhancement of the correlation function. This (non-perturbative sum rule) approach has been shown to be quite reliable as long as short range correlations are concerned. In our calculations, the pseudogap appears when the spin-singlet correlation length reaches about 1 lattice constant. The self-energy due to the spin-singlet correlation function is given by

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{pp}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}VV_{pp}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{q}{}}`$ (6)
$`(\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{k})+\varphi _d(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{k}))^2\chi _{pp}(q)G^0(qk),`$
where $`V=J`$ from Eq. (1).

First let us begin by showing the interaction-induced local spin-singlet (solid curve) amplitude (Fig.1(b)) evaluated in the mean-field state of the $`tJ`$ Hamiltonian in a region where $`s=0`$ (or $`T>T_c^{MF}`$). Since $`s=0`$, the spin-singlet amplitude is entirely caused by short-range spin correlations in the absence of pairing interactions. Although in general a mean-field state is not accurate for strongly correlated electron systems, certain local and short-range static quantities such as double occupancy and nearest neighbor correlations are reasonably well captured by the mean-field state particularly with AF order (See Ref.  for more details). In fact the interaction-induced local spin-singlet amplitude (Eq. (3)) is determined most crucially by these quantities. Quite unexpectedly, the local spin-singlet amplitude increases with decreasing doping despite the fact that the mean-field SC order $`s`$ is absent. The increase of local spin-singlet amplitude traces back to the growing short-range spin correlations with decreasing doping.

In Fig. 1(a) we show the pseudogap temperature $`T^{}`$ (filled diamonds) where the single particle spectral function $`A(\stackrel{}{k},\omega )`$ near $`\stackrel{}{k}=(\pi ,0)`$ starts to be split into two peaks. $`T^{}`$ falls from a high value onto the $`T_c`$ ($`T_c^{MF}`$) line instead of sharing a common line with $`T_c`$ in overdoped region. It is not surprising to find that $`T^{}`$ closely follows $`T_N^{MF}=T^0`$, because in our study the pseudogap is caused by induced local spin-singlet amplitude due to short-range spin correlations, which is reasonably well captured by the mean-field state with AF order. When superconductivity is suppressed by setting $`s=0`$, $`T^{}`$ vanishes near $`x_c`$ where short-range spin correlations disappear. All these features are at least qualitatively consistent with the findings by Tallon and Loram.

Figure 2(a) shows the pseudogap size $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ (filled diamonds) by setting $`s=0`$ at $`T=0`$. In the same figure the pseudogap energy extracted from various experiments by Tallon and Loram is also shown as empty symbols for comparison . $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ vanishes near $`x_c`$, suggesting the presence of a quantum critical point at a critical doping. The agreement between our results and experiments appears remarkable for such a simple approximation used in this paper. The linear vanishing of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ near $`x_c`$ is closely related to the corresponding behavior of the induced local spin-singlet amplitude.

The total excitation gap (or ARPES leading edge gap or SC gap) $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{tg}`$ at $`T=0`$ is larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ due to the additional contribution to the local spin-singlet amplitude from $`s0`$, which is shown together with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$ in Fig. 2(b). $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{tg}`$ and their relative ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{pg}/\mathrm{\Delta }_{tg}`$ are all monotonically decreasing functions of doping, as shown in the inset of Fig. 2(b). Since the SC order parameter vanishes at $`T_c`$ (at $`T_c^{MF}`$ in this paper), the SC gap below $`T_c`$ continuously evolves into the normal state pseudogap above $`T_c`$ with the same momentum dependence and magnitude.

The pseudogap appears here only as the suppression of low frequency spectral weight in certain physical quantities which are obtained through $`A(\stackrel{}{k},\omega )`$ or its convolution with a relevant vertex. It does not appear as a thermodynamic phase with broken symmetry. The present scenario for the pseudogap predicts that a normal state pseudogap is likely to appear when short-range spin correlations are well established and are not masked by long-range (AF or SC) order. The present results are robust to variations of $`t/J=2.53.5`$ and small to moderate value of $`t^{}`$.

In summary, we have shown that the induced local spin-singlet amplitude due to short-range spin correlations causes a normal state pseudogap even in the absence of pairing interactions. $`T^{}`$ falls from a high value onto the $`T_c`$ line and closely follows $`T_N^{MF}`$. The calculated pseudogap size is in good agreement with experimental results. It would be interesting to see how robust are the features found in this paper, when the no-double-occupancy constraint is strictly imposed on the $`tJ`$ model and an inhomogeneous solution is used.

The author would like to thank Prof. A. M. Tremblay for numerous help and discussions throughout the work. He also thanks Profs. H. Ding, J. W. Loram, J. L. Tallon and T. Timusk for useful discussions. The present work was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and the Fonds pour la formation de Chercheurs et d’Aide à la Recherche (FCAR) of the Québec government.


text:
# Quantum cohomology of Grassmannians

## 1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to give simple proofs of the main theorems about the (small) quantum cohomology ring of a Grassmann variety. This first of all includes Bertram’s quantum versions of the Pieri and Giambelli formulas . Bertram’s proofs of these theorems required the use of quot schemes. Our proof of the quantum Pieri formula uses no moduli spaces and only the definition of Gromov-Witten invariants. In fact we show that this formula is a consequence of the classical Pieri formula. We then show that the quantum Giambelli formula follows immediately from the quantum Pieri formula together with the classical Giambelli formula and associativity of quantum cohomology .

We also give a short proof of the Grassmannian case of a formula of Fulton and Woodward for the minimal $`q`$-power which appears in a quantum product of two Schubert classes . In addition we supply a proof of a simple version of the rim-hook algorithm  based on “mod $`n`$” arithmetic which is due to F. Sottile . Finally we recover Siebert and Tian’s presentation of the quantum cohomology of Grassmannians .

In this paper we only assume associativity of quantum cohomology and standard facts about the usual cohomology. The basic idea is that if a rational curve of degree $`d`$ passes through a Schubert variety in the Grassmannian $`\mathrm{Gr}(l,^n)`$ of $`l`$-dimensional subspaces of $`^n`$, then the linear span of the points of this curve gives rise to a point in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,^n)`$ which must lie in a related Schubert variety. Remarkably, this simple idea can in many cases be used to conclude that no curves pass through three Schubert varieties in general position because the intersection of the related Schubert varieties in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,^n)`$ is empty. In particular, the quantum Giambelli formula can be deduced by knowing that certain Gromov-Witten invariants are zero, and in each case this follows because the codimensions of the related Schubert varieties add up to more than the dimension of $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,^n)`$. In a paper  with A. Kresch and H. Tamvakis the same idea will be applied to obtain a similar treatment of the quantum cohomology of Lagrangian and orthogonal Grassmannians .

We thank Sottile for triggering our search for simplifications to the theory of quantum cohomology for Grassmannians, when he explained his simplified rim-hook algorithm to us. We also thank W. Fulton for numerous helpful comments to our paper, some of which greatly enhanced the clarity of our proof of the quantum Giambelli formula. Finally we thank Kresch for simplifying our proof of the key Lemma 1.

## 2. Preliminaries

Set $`E=^n`$, $`X=\mathrm{Gr}(l,E)`$, and $`k=nl`$. Given a flag of subspaces $`F_1F_2\mathrm{}F_n=E`$ and a partition $`\lambda =(\lambda _1\lambda _2\mathrm{}\lambda _l0)`$ with $`\lambda _1k`$, we define the Schubert variety

(1)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})=\{VXdim(VF_{k+i\lambda _i})i1il\}.$$

The codimension of this variety is equal to the weight $`|\lambda |=\lambda _i`$ of $`\lambda `$. We let $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ denote the class of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})`$ in the cohomology ring $`H^{}X=H^{}(X;)`$. The Schubert classes $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ form a basis for this ring. The partitions indexing this basis are exactly those where the Young diagram fits in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle.

The cohomology ring has the presentation $`H^{}X=[\mathrm{\Omega }_1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{\Omega }_k]/(Y_{l+1},\mathrm{},Y_n)`$ where $`Y_p=det(\mathrm{\Omega }_{1+ji})_{1i,jp}`$. Here we set $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i=0`$ for $`i<0`$ or $`i>k`$ for convenience. In this presentation the class $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is given by the Giambelli formula

(2)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =det(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\lambda _i+ji})_{1i,jl}.$$

This is usually deduced (cf. ) from the Pieri formula, which states that

(3)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_i\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda =\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu $$

where the sum is over all partitions $`\nu `$ which can be obtained by adding $`i`$ boxes to the Young diagram of $`\lambda `$ with no two in the same column.

Recall that the degree of a rational curve $`f:^1^N`$ is equal to the number of points in the inverse image by $`f`$ of a general hyperplane in $`^N`$. The degree of a map $`f:^1X`$ is the degree of the composition of $`f`$ with the Plücker embedding $`X(^lE)`$ which maps a point $`VX`$ to $`v_1\mathrm{}v_l`$ for any basis $`\{v_1,\mathrm{},v_l\}`$ of $`V`$. Now let $`\lambda `$, $`\mu `$, and $`\nu `$ be three partitions contained in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle, and let $`d0`$ be an integer such that $`|\lambda |+|\mu |+|\nu |=lk+dn`$. The Gromov-Witten invariant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu _d`$ is defined as the number of rational curves of degree $`d`$ on $`X`$, which meet all of the Schubert varieties $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu (G_{})`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu (H_{})`$ for general flags $`F_{}`$, $`G_{}`$, $`H_{}`$, up to automorphisms of $`^1`$. A simple proof that this number is well defined is given in . If $`|\lambda |+|\mu |+|\nu |lk+dn`$ then $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu _d=0`$.

The (small) quantum cohomology ring $`\text{QH}^{}X=\text{QH}^{}(X;)`$ of $`X`$ is a $`[q]`$-algebra which is isomorphic to $`H^{}X_{}[q]`$ as a module over $`[q]`$. In this ring we have Schubert classes $`\sigma _\lambda =\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda 1`$. The ring structure on $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ is defined by

(4)
$$\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu =\underset{\nu ,d0}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu ^{}_dq^d\sigma _\nu $$

where $`\nu ^{}=(k\nu _l,k\nu _{l1},\mathrm{},k\nu _1)`$ is the partition for the dual Schubert class of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$. It is a non-trivial fact that this defines an associative ring structure  (see also ). Notice that the definition implies that $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ is a graded ring where $`\sigma _\lambda `$ has degree $`|\lambda |`$ and $`q`$ has degree $`n`$. Furthermore, the map $`\text{QH}^{}X/(q)H^{}X`$ which sends $`\sigma _\lambda `$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda `$ is an isomorphism of rings, so the quantum ring is a deformation of the usual cohomology ring.

Siebert and Tian have given a presentation of this ring which is similar to the above presentation of the cohomology ring . We will comment on this presentation towards the end of this paper. For now we will start from the basic assumption that this quantum ring is a well defined associative ring, and aim towards proving generalizations of the Pieri and Giambelli formulas stated above to reveal its structure.

## 3. The span and kernel of a curve

Our main new tool is the following definition. If $`Y`$ is any subvariety of $`X=\mathrm{Gr}(l,E)`$ we define the span of $`Y`$ to be the smallest subspace of $`E`$ containing all the $`l`$-dimensional spaces given by points of $`Y`$. Similarly we define the kernel of $`Y`$ to be the largest subspace of $`E`$ contained in all the spaces given by points of $`Y`$.

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`C`$ be a rational curve of degree $`d`$ in $`X`$. Then the span of $`C`$ has dimension at most $`l+d`$ and the kernel of $`C`$ has dimension at least $`ld`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`C`$ be the image of a regular function $`f:^1X`$ of degree $`d`$, and let $`SE𝒪_X`$ be the tautological subbundle on $`X`$. Then $`f^{}S=_{i=1}^l𝒪_^1(a_i)`$ for integers $`a_i0`$ with sum $`d`$, and $`f`$ is given by an inclusion $`_{i=1}^l𝒪_^1(a_i)E𝒪_^1`$, i.e. a point $`p^1`$ is mapped to the fiber over $`p`$ of the image of this bundle map. If $`(s:t)`$ are homogeneous coordinates on $`^1`$ then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(𝒪_^1(a_i))`$ has the basis $`\{s^jt^{a_ij}\}_{0ja_i}`$, so each map $`𝒪_^1(a_i)E𝒪_^1`$ has the form

$$\underset{j=0}{\overset{a_i}{}}\alpha _js^jt^{ja_i}\underset{j=0}{\overset{a_i}{}}v_j^{(i)}\alpha _j$$

for vectors $`v_j^{(i)}E`$ (which will depend on the chosen identification of $`f^{}S`$ with $`_{i=1}^l𝒪_^1(a_i)`$). The span of $`C`$ must therefore be contained in the span of the set $`\{v_j^{(i)}\}`$ which has cardinality $`1+a_i=l+d`$. On the other hand, at least $`ld`$ of the integers $`a_i`$ must be zero, and the kernel of $`C`$ contains the span of the corresponding vectors $`v_0^{(i)}`$. ∎

The above lemma can also be obtained by proving that any regular function $`f:^1X`$ can be written as $`f(t)=f_1(t)\mathrm{}f_l(t)`$ for maps $`f_i:^1(E)`$. This is what we did until Kresch showed us the simpler argument given here.

If $`\lambda `$ is a partition and $`d`$ a non-negative integer, we let $`\widehat{\lambda }`$ denote the partition obtained by removing the leftmost $`d`$ columns from the Young diagram of $`\lambda `$, i.e. $`\widehat{\lambda }_i=\mathrm{max}(\lambda _id,0)`$.

###### Lemma 2.

Let $`CX`$ be a rational curve of degree $`dk`$ and let $`WE`$ be an $`l+d`$ dimensional subspace containing the span of $`C`$. If $`\lambda `$ is a partition such that $`C\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})\mathrm{}`$ then $`W`$ belongs to the Schubert variety $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\lambda }}(F_{})`$ in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`VC\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})`$. Since $`VW`$, the Schubert conditions on $`V`$ imply that $`dim(WF_{k+i\lambda _i})i`$ for all $`i`$, which says exactly that $`W`$ belongs to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\lambda }}(F_{})`$. ∎

Similarly, if $`SE`$ is an $`ld`$ dimensional subspace contained in the kernel of $`C`$, then $`S\mathrm{\Omega }_{\overline{\lambda }}(F_{})\mathrm{Gr}(ld,E)`$, where $`\overline{\lambda }=(\lambda _{d+1},\mathrm{},\lambda _l)`$ is the result of removing the top $`d`$ rows of $`\lambda `$. Therefore the condition that a curve meets a given set of Schubert varieties in $`X`$ implies that intersections of related Schubert varieties in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$ and in $`\mathrm{Gr}(ld,E)`$ are not empty, which is a statement about the usual cohomology of these spaces. As we shall see, this simple idea is sufficient to compute Gromov-Witten invariants in many important cases.

## 4. The quantum Pieri formula

We start with the following quantum version of the Pieri formula .

###### Theorem 1 (Bertram).

If $`\lambda `$ is contained in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle and $`pk`$ then

$$\sigma _p\sigma _\lambda =\sigma _\mu +q\sigma _\nu $$

where the first sum is over all partitions $`\mu `$ such that $`|\mu |=|\lambda |+p`$ and $`k\mu _1\lambda _1\mu _2\lambda _2\mathrm{}\mu _l\lambda _l`$, and the second sum is over all partitions $`\nu `$ such that $`|\nu |=|\lambda |+pn`$ and $`\lambda _11\nu _1\lambda _21\nu _2\mathrm{}\lambda _l1\nu _l0`$.

Recall that the length $`\mathrm{}(\lambda )`$ of a partition $`\lambda `$ is the number of non-zero parts of $`\lambda `$. Notice that the second sum in the theorem is non-zero only if $`\mathrm{}(\lambda )=l`$.

###### Proof.

The first sum is dictated by the classical Pieri formula. Notice that this classical case is equivalent to the following statement. If $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are partitions such that $`|\alpha |+|\beta |+p=lk`$ then

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta ,\mathrm{\Omega }_p_0=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{if }\alpha _i+\beta _jk\text{ for }i+j=l\text{ and }\alpha _i+\beta _jk\text{ for }i+j=l+1\text{;}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Now suppose $`|\alpha |+|\beta |+p=lk+dn`$ for some $`d1`$ and let $`C`$ be a rational curve of degree $`d`$ in $`X`$ which meets each of the varieties $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha (F_{})`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta (G_{})`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p(H_{})`$ for general flags $`F_{}`$, $`G_{}`$, $`H_{}`$. Let $`WE`$ be a subspace of dimension $`l+d`$ which contains the span of $`C`$. Then $`W\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$ lies in the intersection $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\alpha }}(F_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\beta }}(G_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{p}}(H_{})`$ where $`\widehat{\alpha }`$ and $`\widehat{\beta }`$ are the results of removing the leftmost $`d`$ columns from $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, and $`\widehat{p}=\mathrm{max}(pd,0)`$. Since the flags $`F_{}`$, $`G_{}`$, $`H_{}`$ are general, this implies that $`|\widehat{\alpha }|+|\widehat{\beta }|+\widehat{p}(l+d)(kd)`$. Since we also have

$$|\widehat{\alpha }|+|\widehat{\beta }|+\widehat{p}|\alpha |+|\beta |2ld+pd=(l+d)(kd)+d^2d$$

we deduce that $`d=1`$ and $`\mathrm{}(\alpha )=\mathrm{}(\beta )=l`$. Using this, the quantum Pieri formula becomes equivalent to the statement that if $`|\alpha |+|\beta |+p=lk+n`$ then $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta ,\mathrm{\Omega }_p_1=1`$ if $`\alpha _i+\beta _jk+1`$ for $`i+j=l+1`$ and $`\alpha _i+\beta _jk+1`$ for $`i+j=l+2`$; otherwise $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta ,\mathrm{\Omega }_p_1=0`$. In other words, the quantum Pieri formula states that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta ,\mathrm{\Omega }_p_1=\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\alpha }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\beta }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{p}}_0`$ where the right hand side is a coefficient of the classical Pieri formula for $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+1,E)`$.

If $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\alpha }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\beta }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{p}}_0`$ is zero then the space $`W`$ can’t exist, so neither can $`C`$. On the other hand, if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\alpha }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\beta }},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{p}}_0=1`$ then there exists a unique subspace $`WE`$ of dimension $`l+1`$ which is contained in the intersection $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\alpha }}(F_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\beta }}(G_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{p}}(H_{})`$. Furthermore, since the flags are general, $`W`$ must lie in the interior of each of these Schubert varieties. In particular, each of the spaces $`V_1=WF_{n\alpha _l}`$ and $`V_2=WG_{n\beta _l}`$ have dimension $`l`$. Notice also that $`V_1\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha (F_{})`$ and $`V_2\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta (G_{})`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha (F_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta (G_{})=\mathrm{}`$ we deduce that $`V_1V_2`$, so $`S=V_1V_2`$ has dimension $`l1`$. We conclude that the only rational curve of degree $`1`$ in $`X`$ which meets the Schubert varieties for $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`p`$ is the line $`(W/S)`$ of $`l`$-dimensional subspaces between $`S`$ and $`W`$. ∎

## 5. The quantum Giambelli formula

Now set $`\sigma _i=0`$ for $`i<0`$ and for $`k<i<n`$. The quantum Giambelli formula states that the classical formula (2) continues to be valid if all Schubert classes are replaced with the corresponding quantum Schubert classes .

###### Theorem 2 (Bertram).

If $`\lambda `$ is a partition contained in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle, then the Schubert class $`\sigma _\lambda `$ in $`\text{QH}^{}\mathrm{Gr}(l,E)`$ is given by $`\sigma _\lambda =det(\sigma _{\lambda _i+ji})_{1i,jl}`$.

###### Proof.

We claim that if $`0i_jk`$ for $`1jl`$ then $`\sigma _{i_1}\sigma _{i_2}\mathrm{}\sigma _{i_l}=(\mathrm{\Omega }_{i_1}\mathrm{\Omega }_{i_2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_{i_l})1`$, i.e. no $`q`$-terms show up when the first product is expanded in the quantum ring. Using induction, this can be established by proving that if $`\mathrm{}(\mu )<l`$ then the expansion of $`\sigma _i\sigma _\mu `$ involves no $`q`$-terms and no partitions of lengths greater than $`\mathrm{}(\mu )+1`$. The claim therefore follows from Theorem 1. Since the determinant of the quantum Giambelli formula is a signed sum of products of the form $`\sigma _{i_1}\sigma _{i_2}\mathrm{}\sigma _{i_l}`$, we conclude from the classical Giambelli formula (2) that $`det(\sigma _{\lambda _i+ji})=det(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\lambda _i+ji})1=\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda 1=\sigma _\lambda `$ as required. ∎

Notice that this proof uses only that no $`q`$-terms are contained in a product $`\sigma _i\sigma _\mu `$ when $`\mathrm{}(\mu )<l`$ (in addition to the classical Giambelli and Pieri formulas). In fact, Theorem 1 could be replaced with the following lemma.

###### Lemma 3.

Let $`\lambda `$ and $`\mu `$ be partitions contained in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle such that $`\mathrm{}(\lambda )+\mathrm{}(\mu )l`$. Then $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu =(\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu )1`$.

###### Proof.

If $`d1`$ and $`\nu `$ is a partition such that $`|\lambda |+|\mu |+|\nu |=lk+nd`$, then any intersection $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\lambda }}(F_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\mu }}(G_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\nu }}(H_{})`$ of general Schubert varieties in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$ must be empty since $`|\widehat{\lambda }|+|\widehat{\mu }|+|\widehat{\nu }||\lambda |+|\mu |+|\nu |2dl=lk+dkdl>(l+d)(kd)`$. This shows that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ,\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu _d=0`$. ∎

A dual version of this lemma states that if $`\lambda _1+\mu _1k`$ then $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu =(\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu )1`$. This follows by replacing the span of a curve with its kernel in the above proof, or by using the duality isomorphism $`\text{QH}^{}\mathrm{Gr}(l,E)\text{QH}^{}\mathrm{Gr}(k,E^{})`$.

## 6. The minimal power of $`q`$ in a quantum product

As a further demonstration of the use of the span of a rational curve in $`X`$, we will give a short proof of a recent theorem of Fulton and Woodward  in the case of Grassmannians. It generalizes the fact that any product $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu `$ in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ is non-zero.

Given a partition $`\lambda `$ and an integer $`d0`$, we let $`\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}`$ denote the partition obtained by removing the top $`d`$ rows and the leftmost $`d`$ columns from $`\lambda `$. Recall that a product $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda \mathrm{\Omega }_\mu `$ is non-zero in $`H^{}\mathrm{Gr}(l,E)`$ if and only if $`\lambda _i+\mu _jk`$ for $`i+j=l+1`$.

###### Theorem 3 (Fulton and Woodward).

The smallest power of $`q`$ which appears in a product $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu `$ in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ is equal to the smallest $`d`$ for which $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu 0`$ in $`H^{}X`$.

###### Proof.

If $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu `$ contains $`q^d`$ times a Schubert class then some curve of degree $`d`$ meets each of the Schubert varieties $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda (F_{})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu (G_{})`$ where $`F_{}`$ and $`G_{}`$ are general flags. If $`WE`$ has dimension $`l+d`$ and contains the span of this curve then $`W`$ lies in the intersection $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\lambda }}(F_{})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\mu }}(G_{})`$ in $`\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$. In particular this intersection is not empty which implies that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\lambda }}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\mu }}0`$ in $`H^{}\mathrm{Gr}(l+d,E)`$. Since this is equivalent to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu 0`$ in $`H^{}X`$, this proves the inequality “$``$” of the theorem.

Now let $`d`$ be the smallest number for which $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu 0`$. Notice that this implies that $`\lambda `$ contains a $`d\times d`$ rectangle, i.e. $`\lambda _dd`$. Set $`\alpha =(k+d\lambda _d,\mathrm{},k+d\lambda _1)`$ and let $`\beta `$ be the partition given by $`\beta _i=\mathrm{max}(d\lambda _{l+1i},0)`$ for $`1il`$. If the Young diagram for $`\lambda `$ is put in the upper-left corner of an $`l`$ by $`k+d`$ rectangle, then $`\alpha `$ is the complement of $`\lambda `$ in the top $`d`$ rows of this rectangle, turned $`180`$ degrees, and $`\beta `$ is the complement of $`\lambda `$ in the leftmost $`d`$ columns, also turned.

It follows from the Littlewood-Richardson rule that the product $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\beta `$ contains the class $`\sigma _{(d^l)+\widehat{\lambda }}=\sigma _{(d^l)}\sigma _{\widehat{\lambda }}`$ and that $`\sigma _{\widehat{\lambda }}\sigma _\alpha `$ contains $`\sigma _{(k^d),\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}=\sigma _{(k^d)}\sigma _{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}`$. Since the structure constants of $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ are all non-negative, this implies that $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\beta \sigma _\alpha `$ contains the product $`\sigma _{(d^l)}\sigma _{(k^d)}\sigma _{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}=q^d\sigma _{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\widehat{\overline{\lambda }}}\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu 0`$ by assumption, we conclude that $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu \sigma _\alpha \sigma _\beta `$ contains $`q^d`$ times some Schubert class. In particular, at least one term of the product $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu `$ must involve a power of $`q`$ which is less than or equal to $`d`$. This proves the other inequality “$``$” in the theorem. Notice that the identities we have used in this argument follow easily from Theorem 1 and the dual version of Lemma 3, combined with the classical Pieri rule. ∎

## 7. The rim-hook algorithm

We will next recall how to carry out computations in the quantum cohomology ring of $`X`$. Let $`c_i\text{QH}^{}X`$ denote the $`i`$th Chern class of the dual of the tautological subbundle $`SE𝒪_X`$. This means that $`c_i=\sigma _{(1^i)}`$ for $`0il`$ and $`c_i=0`$ for $`i<0`$ and $`i>l`$. For $`p1`$ we then define $`\sigma _p=det(c_{1+ji})_{1i,jp}`$ in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$. Notice that for $`p<n`$ we have $`\sigma _p=\mathrm{\Omega }_p1`$, so this definition is compatible with our previous definition of $`\sigma _p`$. The definition implies that for every $`m1`$ we have

(5)
$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{l}{}}(1)^i\sigma _{mi}\sigma _{(1^i)}=0.$$

###### Lemma 4.

For any $`pk+1`$ we have $`\sigma _p=(1)^{l1}q\sigma _{pn}`$.

###### Proof.

Both sides of the identity are zero for $`k+1p<n`$. It follows from (5) with $`m=n`$ that $`\sigma _n+(1)^l\sigma _k\sigma _{(1^l)}=0`$, so $`\sigma _n=(1)^{l1}\sigma _k\sigma _{(1^l)}=(1)^{l1}q`$ by Theorem 1. For $`p>n`$ we finally obtain

$$\sigma _p=\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}(1)^{i1}\sigma _{pi}\sigma _{(1^i)}=(1)^{l1}q\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}(1)^{i1}\sigma _{pni}\sigma _{(1^i)}=(1)^{l1}q\sigma _{pn}$$

by induction, which proves the lemma. ∎

If $`I=(I_1,I_2,\mathrm{},I_p)`$ is any sequence of integers we set $`\sigma _I=det(\sigma _{I_i+ji})_{1i,jp}`$ in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$. This is compatible with our notation $`\sigma _\lambda `$ for partitions $`\lambda `$ by Theorem 2. Any element $`\sigma _I`$ can be rewritten as zero or plus or minus $`\sigma _\mu `$ for some partition $`\mu `$ by moves of the form $`\sigma _{I,a,a+1,J}=0`$ and $`\sigma _{I,a,b,J}=\sigma _{I,b1,a+1,J}`$, which correspond to interchanging rows in the determinant defining $`\sigma _I`$. Notice that if $`\lambda `$ is a partition then we have the formal identity $`\sigma _\lambda =det(c_{\lambda _i^{}+ji})`$ where $`\lambda ^{}`$ is the conjugate partition of $`\lambda `$, obtained by mirroring the Young diagram for $`\lambda `$ in its diagonal. In particular, if $`\mathrm{}(\lambda )>l`$ then the top row of the latter determinant is zero, and $`\sigma _\lambda =0`$.

###### Corollary 1.

Let $`\lambda `$ be a partition with at most $`l`$ parts. For each $`1jl`$, choose $`I_j`$ such that $`I_j\lambda _j(\mathrm{mod}n)`$ and $`jlI_j<jl+n`$. Then we have

$$\sigma _\lambda =(1)^{d(l1)}q^d\sigma _I\text{QH}^{}X$$

where $`I=(I_1,\mathrm{},I_l)`$ and $`nd=|\lambda |I_j`$.

Notice that the moves described above will rewrite the chosen element $`\sigma _I`$ to zero or plus or minus a basis element $`\sigma _\mu `$ of $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ with $`\mu `$ contained in an $`l\times k`$ rectangle. The corollary is equivalent to the dual rim-hook algorithm of . The formulation in terms of reduction modulo $`n`$ is due to F. Sottile , who in turn was inspired by the work of Ravi, Rosenthal, and Wang . This formulation gives an efficient algorithm to determine if two elements $`\sigma _\lambda `$ and $`\sigma _\mu `$ are identical. In particular it shows that $`\sigma _\lambda =0`$ if and only if $`\lambda _ii\lambda _jj(\mathrm{mod}n)`$ for some $`ij`$.

Corollary 1 makes it easy to do computations in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ (cf.  and \[8, Ex. 13.35\]). In order to expand a product $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu `$, one uses the classical Littlewood-Richardson rule to write $`\sigma _\lambda \sigma _\mu =c_{\lambda \mu }^\nu \sigma _\nu `$ where the sum is over partitions $`\nu `$ of length at most $`l`$ and $`c_{\lambda \mu }^\nu `$ is the Littlewood-Richardson coefficient. Each of the elements $`\sigma _\nu `$ can then be reduced to a basis element of $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ by the corollary.

## 8. Generators and relations

Finally, we show how to deduce Siebert and Tian’s presentation of the quantum cohomology ring of $`X`$ . We claim that

(6)
$$\text{QH}^{}X=[c_1,\mathrm{},c_l,q]/(\sigma _{k+1},\mathrm{},\sigma _{n1},\sigma _n+(1)^lq).$$

In fact, all of the given relations vanish in $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ by Lemma 4. On the other hand, the proof of Lemma 4 together with Corollary 1 shows that the linear map $`H^{}X[q][c_1,\mathrm{},c_l,q]/(\sigma _{k+1},\mathrm{},\sigma _{n1},\sigma _n+(1)^lq)`$ which sends $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda q^d`$ to $`q^d\sigma _\lambda `$ is surjective, which proves the isomorphism. Siebert and Tian gave this presentation in its dual form $`\text{QH}^{}X=[\sigma _1,\mathrm{},\sigma _k,q]/(\stackrel{~}{Y}_{l+1},\mathrm{},\stackrel{~}{Y}_{n1},\stackrel{~}{Y}_n+(1)^kq)`$ where the $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_i`$ are defined inductively by $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_0=1`$, $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_i=0`$ for $`i<0`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{Y}_i=_{j=1}^k(1)^{j1}\sigma _j\stackrel{~}{Y}_{ij}`$ for $`i>0`$.

The presentation (6) can also be stated as $`\text{QH}^{}X=[c_1,\mathrm{},c_l]/I^{(l,n)}`$ where $`I^{(l,n)}=(\sigma _{k+1},\mathrm{},\sigma _{n1})`$. In this form the variable $`q`$ is represented by $`(1)^{l1}\sigma _n=\sigma _{(k+1,1^{l1})}`$. In  other generators for the ideal $`I^{(l,n)}`$ are used, namely all elements $`\sigma _\lambda `$ for which $`\lambda _1\lambda _l=k+1`$. It is an easy exercise to show that these elements in fact generate the same ideal, and to show that the basis $`\{q^d\sigma _\lambda \lambda _1k\}`$ of $`\text{QH}^{}X`$ is equal to the set $`\{\sigma _\lambda \lambda _1\lambda _lk\}`$ which is the basis used in . We refer to  for a more detailed discussion of the relations of quantum cohomology of Grassmannians with other fields.


text:
# Classical to quantum crossover in high-current noise of one-dimensional ballistic wires

## I Introduction

In this work we address a major, yet largely neglected, issue of mesoscopic transport: the nature of high-field thermal fluctuations and of what they reveal about transport dynamics. Noise and conductance in electronic transport are intertwined. Knowledge of one illuminates the other. Nowhere is their symbiosis clearer, or more critical to physical understanding, than in mesoscopic conduction.

Carrier fluctuations, measured as noise, change dramatically in the physical setting of ballistic transport . Noise yields insights into the innermost aspects of carrier motion that cannot be gained from conductance alone. Noise at high currents is the most revealing. Little is known about high-field mesoscopic noise, despite the ease with which even modest driving potentials can push a mesoscopic system beyond linear response . It is acknowledged that this unfamiliar but important region must be opened up and mapped .

We preface our study with a brief recollection of ballistic transport. So-called mesoscopic conductors have sizes comparable to the scale for electron scattering. Such systems no longer exhibit bulk Ohmic behavior. This was strikingly demonstrated in the recent experiments of de Picciotto et al. . The resistance of a ballistic, almost one-dimensional (1D) quantum wire was probed, noninvasively, at two inner contacts well separated from the large diffusive leads acting as current source and drain. Across the inner probes and at finite current, the wire’s voltage drop, and hence the intrinsic resistance, were deduced to be essentially zero.

Reference  also reported two-probe current-voltage data that included the source and drain in series with the 1D channel. In their well characterized 1D wire they found good agreement with the standard Landauer-Büttiker (LB) prediction of quantized jumps in the two-terminal conductance, as a function of carrier density .

At this point we come upon the core issue in ballistic transport. How can the finite conductance (albeit with sharp steps) be reconciled with the property of totally resistance-free transport within the central ballistic segment?

The LB theory accounts for this coexistence by simple kinematics. A 1D wire admits a sparse set of discrete subband states for electron transmission, while its attached leads have a much richer quasicontinuous density of such states. As well, they are collisionally coupled to a rich phonon spectrum. Bottlenecks arise as carriers try to funnel into and fan out of the small set of 1D states. That mismatch destroys perfect conduction and manifests as the “contact resistance” of the leads.

According to the LB account, the contact resistance is quantized because its bottleneck is regulated solely by the occupancy of the quantized ballistic states. Each time the electrons’ Fermi level accesses an additional higher 1D subband, the ideal two-probe conductance is shown to jump by $`e^2/\pi \mathrm{}`$ .

In the Landauer-Büttiker picture, therefore, the two-probe conductance appears to be free of any influence from extraneous parameters such as the asymptotic density of states and scattering rates for the macroscopic leads; those can enter only implicitly in the transport . One must suppose that the physics of relaxation in the carrier reservoirs remains concealed – in a nonspecific fashion – within each lead’s equilibrium state as it fixes the boundary conditions for the sample .

## II A Physical Dilemma

We make an important observation. If a 1D wire is imperfectly transmissive (finite resistance), LB predicts departures from the ideal staircase for two-probe conductance. On the other hand, if one knows for sure that the 1D wire transmits perfectly (zero resistance) LB is bound to say, unequivocally, that the two-probe conductance must scale strictly universally. The published two-probe results of Ref.  record a somewhat imperfect “universal” conductance, yet the four-probe results record perfect transmission. We will return to this apparent dilemma.

Here noise enters as a wholly different kind of probe. Beside the linear LB theory for conductance, there is a corresponding theory for low-field mesoscopic fluctuations (in the strictly linear regime, these should always be be tightly circumscribed by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem). The most authoritative survey of LB noise theory to date is Blanter and Büttiker’s .

Inherently nonlinear mesoscopic noise is out of reach to the LB approach, which can treat only voltages much below the Fermi energy . We now pose our key question: What can those little-known fluctuations reveal about the wire-lead interaction and the contact resistance?

We predict the surprising existence of large peaks in the thermal, or hot-electron, noise of a ballistic system. These noise structures are much larger than shot noise which also peaks at the stepwise two-probe conductance transitions. For high-field thermal noise, more can be said. Its maxima carry unique quantitative information tracking the interplay of inelastic and elastic scattering in the leads. Nonlinear fluctuations, governed by inelasticity, are simply inaccessible to elastic-only, low-field descriptions. For our part, we build upon existing nonequilibrium kinetics .

In the following Section we describe our kinetic model for the conductance of a 1D ballistic wire fully open to an incoherent dissipative environment. In Sec. 4 we extend the kinetic description to the nonequilibrium current noise in the system, and demonstrate the rich behavior of its spectral density. Section 5 has our numerical results, confirming that hot ballistic electrons, in their transition from a classical to a degenerate regime, yield dramatic thermal-fluctuation peaks. Finally, in Sec. 6 we sum up; our predictions for nonequilibrium ballistic noise have direct implications for corroborating the recent seminal four-probe data .

## III Kinetic Description

Figure 1 depicts our model system. An ideal 1D wire of length $`L`$ is connected to two large reservoirs which are always at equilibrium; the identical arrangement of Landauer-Büttiker, as for Ref. . Elastic (nondissipative) and inelastic (dissipative) collisions occur within the leads. A kinetic description will cover both wire and leads. Inelastic and elastic mean free paths (MFPs) cannot be shorter than $`L`$.

We stress that it is utterly essential to incorporate, within the microscopic equations of motion, at least the leading-order effects of dissipative inelastic collisions in the leads. It is the kinetics of dissipative relaxation alone that secures the energetic stability of transport over the system , by establishing steady state.

There is a second crucial consequence of inelastic relaxation in the leads: the total loss of phase memory for carriers crossing the ballistic region of the system. From the ballistic carriers’ perspective, they no longer bear the detailed signature of their collision history, which thus becomes Markovian.

The only kinetic parameters that survive phase breaking are (a) the effective scale of the scattering mean free paths (matching the ballistic length), and (b) the size of the driving field that impels carriers across the collision-free segment. It is precisely through phase breaking that the ballistic system becomes insensitive to the particulars of geometry and material structure of its asymptotic leads. On that basis, one can make a semi-classical analysis of the ballistic kinetics.

Our Fermi-liquid perspective is very closely related to that of Kamenev and Kohn . We generalize their coherent, closed-circuit, linear-response approach to deal with a phase-broken, open system driven far from equilibrium. We guarantee the open system’s all-important gauge invariance by inserting an explicit flux $`I/e`$ of electrons at the source, and its matched sink $`I/e`$ at the drain (equivalently, a hole flux of strength $`I/e`$).

Formally, the direct inclusion of boundary flux sources is strictly mandated by global – as distinct from local – charge and current conservation in open conductors, with nontrivial electromotive forces (EMFs) acting from outside . Physically, the flux-source regions at the lead–wire boundaries fulfill a unique, and absolutely necessary, dynamical role. They are the active sites for the nonequilibrium scattering processes that directly determine the relaxation in the leads.

First we recover the full Landauer-Büttiker conductance by our kinetic analysis. Consider any single, occupied 1D subband. From the viewpoint of their time-stationary distribution, incoherence in the leads means that carriers inside the finite wire will perceive a homogeneous physical environment, not only within the wire proper (internal homogeneity is also assumed in the LB description) but at a far longer range. They will behave as though the physical wire were embedded, seamlessly, in a very long effective 1D host. This effective host conductor, “standing in” for the leads, is itself nonideal on a scale to match the ballistic length $`L`$.

The boundaries and field sources are as if at infinity, even though the actual current injector and extractor can be adjacent to the wire. Explicit carrier relaxation in the boundary neighborhoods, in concert with the EMF (Landauer’s resistivity dipole), asymptotically “prepares” the nonequilibrium and uniform steady state of the carriers crossing the inner ballistic region. The size $`V`$ of the EMF quantifies the injected carriers’ self-consistent adjustment to relaxation inside the embedding host (the leads). The collision-mediated relation between $`V`$ and $`I`$ follows .

Let the steady-state electron distribution in the wire be $`f_k`$ for states $`k`$ within our 1D subband (spin label implied). The collision-time form for the kinetic equation, for EMF field $`E`$ in the source-to-drain direction, is

$$\frac{eE}{\mathrm{}}\frac{f_k}{k}=\frac{1}{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}(\epsilon _k)}\left(f_k\frac{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}^1f}{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}^1f^{\mathrm{eq}}}f_k^{\mathrm{eq}}\right)\frac{1}{\tau _{\mathrm{el}}(\epsilon _k)}\frac{f_kf_k}{2}.$$
(1)
Here $`\tau _{\mathrm{in}}(\epsilon _k)`$ and $`\tau _{\mathrm{el}}(\epsilon _k)`$ are the inelastic and elastic scattering times, in general energy-dependent. The leading, inelastic collision term has a restoring contribution proportional, in the general case, to the expectation

$`\tau _{\mathrm{in}}^1f(t){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2dk}{2\pi }}\tau _{\mathrm{in}}^1(\epsilon _k)f_k(t).`$

The inelastic collision term respects continuity and (local) gauge invariance  dynamically and, as in Eq. (1), statically. As usual, the underlying equilibrium distribution is $`f_k^{\mathrm{eq}}=1/\{1+\mathrm{exp}[(\epsilon _k+\epsilon _i\mu )/k_\mathrm{B}T]\}`$ where $`\epsilon _i`$ is the band-threshold energy. Only one chemical potential, $`\mu `$, enters the problem . Finally, the elastic collision term restores symmetry.

A microscopic formulation such as Eq. (1) does not need to segregate left- and right-moving carriers for exclusive treatment . Nor, as Kamenev and Kohn have rigorously shown , does such a formalism need the special creation of chemical potentials exclusive to different movers .

Let us now specialize, just as in Landauer-Büttiker, to energy-independent scattering rates. Stanton  has solved Eq. (1) analytically with a particular linear transformation:

$$\widehat{f}_k\frac{1}{2}\left(1+\sqrt{\frac{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}}{\tau }}\right)f_k+\frac{1}{2}\left(1\sqrt{\frac{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}}{\tau }}\right)f_k$$
(2)
where $`\tau ^1=\tau _{\mathrm{in}}^1+\tau _{\mathrm{el}}^1`$ is recognizable as the Matthiessen relaxation rate. The composite function $`\widehat{f}`$ satisfies a simpler form of Eq. (1) in which $`\sqrt{\tau \tau _{\mathrm{in}}}`$ appears in place of $`\tau _{\mathrm{in}}`$ and there is no elastic collision term. Its exact solution is

$$\widehat{f}_k=\lambda _{\mathrm{}}^k𝑑k^{}e^{\lambda (kk^{})}f_k^{}^{\mathrm{eq}},$$
(3)
where $`\lambda =\mathrm{}/(eE\sqrt{\tau \tau _{\mathrm{in}}})`$. The physical solution is easily recovered, as is the expectation value of the current:

$$I=ev_kf_k=\frac{e\mathrm{}}{m^{}}kf_k=\frac{e\mathrm{}}{m^{}}\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}}}k\widehat{f}_k$$
(4)
for a parabolic subband with effective mass $`m^{}`$. Integration at subband density $`n`$ yields the time-honored result

$$I=\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}}}\frac{ne\mathrm{}}{m^{}\lambda }=\frac{ne^2\tau }{m^{}}E.$$
(5)
Near equilibrium the ballistic hypothesis applies. The dominant mean free paths in the effective 1D host conductor, namely the Fermi ones $`v_\mathrm{F}\tau _{\mathrm{in}}`$ and $`v_\mathrm{F}\tau _{\mathrm{el}}`$, will each span $`L`$, the ideal collision-free length of the uniform sample. Let us therefore equate each MFP to $`L`$; then $`\tau =L/2v_\mathrm{F}`$. The uniform-state solution Eq. (5) gives, on writing the subband density as $`n=2m^{}v_\mathrm{F}/\pi \mathrm{}`$,

$$I=\frac{2m^{}v_\mathrm{F}}{\pi \mathrm{}}\frac{e^2EL}{2m^{}v_\mathrm{F}}=\frac{e^2}{\pi \mathrm{}}V$$
(6)
in which $`V=EL`$ is the external EMF. Equation (6) exhibits precisely the Landauer-Büttiker conductance.

This result complements the Kamenev-Kohn approach, which derives Eq. (6) by applying orthodox Fermi-liquid principles (via microscopic Kubo and quantum-transmission theories) in the context of a closed, nondissipative, phase-coherent mesoscopic circuit . Equally, the present derivation builds upon standard Fermi-liquid microscopics and applies it (via kinetic theory) to the open, dissipative, phase-breaking context of mesoscopic circuits in the laboratory .

## IV Nonequilibrium Ballistic Fluctuations

Our open-system kinetic theory for ballistic transport clearly leads to the Landauer-Büttiker quantized conductance. Now we obtain the nonequilibrium hot-electron noise, which the linear-response LB picture cannot attain. For this we need the retarded, space-time dependent Green function $`R_{kk^{}}(x,x^{};tt^{})=\theta (tt^{})\delta f_k(x,t)/\delta f_k^{}(x^{},t^{})`$ for the dynamical form of Eq. (1). The standard, manifestly gauge-invariant kinetic equation for the dynamic response $`R`$ is

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+v_k{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}+{\displaystyle \frac{eE}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}\right]R_{kk^{}}(x,x^{};tt^{})=`$ $`2\pi \delta (kk^{})\delta (xx^{})\delta (tt^{})`$ (7)
(11)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau _{\mathrm{in}}}}\left(R_{kk^{}}R_{k^{\prime \prime }k^{}}^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{f_k^{\mathrm{eq}}}{n}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\tau _{\mathrm{el}}}}(R_{kk^{}}R_{k,k^{}}).`$
The first step in solving $`R_{kk^{}}(x,x^{};tt^{})`$ is to Fourier transform it to $`_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )`$ in the momentum-frequency domain $`(q,q^{};\omega )`$. Next, a frequency-dependent continuation of Stanton’s transformation for $`\widehat{f}`$, Eq. (2), leads one to a composite Green function $`\widehat{}_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )`$. That object, a well formed linear combination of matrix elements of the physical response $`_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )`$, has an equation of motion more readily solved than Eq. (11). The last major step is to isolate the purely transient component of $`\widehat{}`$. This is embodied in the correlated propagator

$$\widehat{𝒞}_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )\widehat{}_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )j_0(qL/2)\widehat{}_{k^{\prime \prime }k^{}}(0,q^{};\omega )^{\prime \prime }\frac{\widehat{f}_k}{n},$$
(12)
whose second right-hand term represents the adiabatic (low-frequency dominant) contribution to $`\widehat{}`$, now subtracted *** The spherical Bessel function $`j_0(qL/2)`$ is the transform of the step function $`\theta (L/2|x|)`$, delimiting the finite ballistic wire. .

The current-current spectral density, taken over all carriers in the sample, can now be regained. It is a linear superposition of convolutions of the correlation $`(\pm v_k)(\pm v_k^{})\widehat{𝒞}_{\pm k,\pm k^{}}`$, evaluated for all sign choices, with the steady-state mean-square fluctuation distribution

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{f}_k^{}=\lambda _{\mathrm{}}^k^{}𝑑k^{\prime \prime }e^{\lambda (k^{}k^{\prime \prime })}k_\mathrm{B}T\frac{f_{k^{\prime \prime }}^{\mathrm{eq}}}{\mu }.$$
(13)
With the same linear transformation used in Eq. (2), this uniquely maps the static electron-hole pair correlation at equilibrium (the last derivative factor in the integrand of Eq. (13)) to its fully nonequilibrium counterpart .

In the dynamics of a spontaneous thermal excursion of the steady state, Eq. (13) fixes the mean initial strength of the background electron-hole fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{f}`$, perturbing the nonequilibrium system at any given instant. From Eq. (12), $`\widehat{𝒞}`$ then provides its subsequent relaxation.

The flux autocorrelation function has the raw form $`v\widehat{C}v^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{f}^{}^{}`$. After some tedious but straightforward linear algebra, the original quantities $`C_{kk^{}}(q,q^{};\omega )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_k^{}`$ are reconstructed and, with them, we finally obtain the complete and explicit physical form $`vCv^{}\mathrm{\Delta }f^{}^{}`$. This defines the thermal-noise spectral density in the ballistic wire , specializing now to the $`i`$th subband:

$$𝒮_i(q,q^{};\omega )4\mathrm{}\left\{(ev/L)C_i(q,q^{};\omega )(ev^{}/L)\mathrm{\Delta }f_i^{}^{}\right\}.$$
(14)
The long-time average of the hot-electron fluctuations, integrated over the wire for a parabolic subband at density $`n_i=2m^{}v_{\mathrm{F}i}/\pi \mathrm{}`$, comes from the long-wavelength static form of Eq. (14):

$`𝒮_i^{\mathrm{xs}}(V)=`$ $`𝒮_i(0,0;0)4G_ik_\mathrm{B}T`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`4G_ik_\mathrm{B}T{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}n_i}{\mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2V^2}{2m^{}L^2}}\left(\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}^2+2\tau _i\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}\tau _i^2\right);`$ (17)
note that the (dissipative) Johnson-Nyquist term $`4G_ik_\mathrm{B}T`$ is removed. The subband conductance is $`G_i=(2v_{\mathrm{F}i}\tau _i/L)G_0`$ with $`G_0=e^2/\pi \mathrm{}`$. We do not necessarily assume, as for Eq. (6), collision times $`\tau _{\mathrm{el};i}`$ and $`\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}`$ equal to the transit time $`L/v_{\mathrm{F}i}`$ and predicated on a potentially singular density dependence of the relaxation rates.

Equation (17) is clearly sensitive to the ratio $`\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}/\tau _{\mathrm{el};i}`$. It probes the dynamics imposed by the leads upon each individual subband. It is our foremost outcome.

There are three points more.

(ı) The excess thermal noise is nonlinear in the EMF. Although, like shot noise, it is nondissipative , Eq. (17) does not describe shot noise . We emphasize that $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ is an entirely separate and experimentally distinguishable effect.

(ıı) For strong inelastic scattering $`𝒮_i^{\mathrm{xs}}/G_i`$ vanishes. At weak inelasticity it diverges; as $`\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}\mathrm{}`$, carriers have no way to shed excess energy and the hot-electron distribution broadens without limit. Fluctuations are all. Thus, transport models based solely on elastic relaxation have, at best, a marginal thermodynamic stability.

(ııı) At strong degeneracy $`𝒮_i^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ scales as $`k_\mathrm{B}T\mathrm{ln}n_i/\mu =k_\mathrm{B}T/2(\mu \epsilon _i)`$. This is a feature generic to the dense nonequilibrium electron gas . For classical electrons, the same factor goes to unity, and classical excess noise is then independent of $`T`$.

## V Numerical Results

In the light of (ııı) above, the nonequilibrium behavior of Eq. (17) at a subband threshold is extremely interesting. An increase in electron density within each level $`i`$ takes its ballistic carrier population out of the classical domain ($`\mu \epsilon _i`$) and makes it cross over to the highly degenerate regime ($`\mu \epsilon _i`$). Thus the kinematic $`T`$-scaling of $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ starts to attenuate it strongly while, at the same time, the factor $`G_i`$ in Eq. (17) grows from almost nothing at low subband occupancy to values near $`G_0`$ at high density. This pattern repeats itself as each level is filled in succession.

Evidently, classical statistics naturally dominates whenever $`\mu \epsilon _ik_\mathrm{B}T`$. If one insists on suppressing it by imposing a strict but inappropriate degeneracy there, the development of $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ will echo that for the Landauer-Büttiker conductance model: $`G_i\theta (\mu \epsilon _i)G_0`$. Then $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ behaves pathologically, and quite unphysically. Forgoing this unnatural choice we shall adopt a proper finite-temperature representation, with no artificially enforced degeneracy at the subband crossings.

The Ansatz in Eq. (6), whereby $`\tau _i1/v_{F}^{}{}_{i}{}^{}`$ as $`v_{F}^{}{}_{i}{}^{}0`$, must be corrected for its spurious divergence when the chemical potential falls below the subband edge. The MFP for elastic impurity scattering stays close to $`L`$ and is insensitive to hot-electron effects, while the inelastic MFP shortens as phonon emission sets in. We write the elastic time as $`\tau _{\mathrm{el};i}=L/u_i(\mu )`$ for the well-behaved and characteristic velocity average $`u_i(\mu )2|v|f^{\mathrm{eq}}_i/n_i`$. Near and below the subband crossing $`u_i`$ is the classical, thermal velocity; above, $`u_iv_{\mathrm{F}i}`$. We will map the behavior of $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ as a functional of the more labile inelastic time, which we parametrize as $`\tau _{\mathrm{in};i}\zeta _i\tau _{\mathrm{el};i}`$.

Our results for a two-band model are in Fig. 2. We choose inelastic-to-elastic ratios $`\zeta _1=1`$ and $`\zeta _2=1`$, 0.8, and 0.6  The corresponding LB transmission factors are given by $`𝒯_i=G_i/G_0`$. In the degenerate limit this means that $`𝒯_i2\zeta _i/(1+\zeta _i)`$ so that, for our chosen values $`\zeta _i`$, one obtains the respective LB factors $`𝒯_1=1`$ and $`𝒯_2=1`$, 0.89, and 0.75.. Our total excess noise is $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}=𝒮_1^{\mathrm{xs}}+𝒮_2^{\mathrm{xs}}`$, total conductance is $`G=G_1+G_2`$. Subband edges are $`\epsilon _1=5k_\mathrm{B}T`$ and $`\epsilon _2=17k_\mathrm{B}T`$. We keep $`V`$ constant at $`9k_\mathrm{B}T/e`$ in each of three plots of $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}(V)`$ as a function of chemical potential.

In $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$, with increasing $`\mu `$, we see dramatic peaks where $`G`$ has characteristic steps. The peaks reveal an orderly metamorphosis of 1D hot-electron fluctuations, from their classical ($`T`$-independent) regime at the steps to their degeneracy-suppressed ($`T`$-scaled) state at the plateaux. This striking, chameleon-like transformation bears no relation to shot noise . Such an effect can be readily probed in the laboratory, by appropriately biasing a gate voltage that couples to the electron density in the ballistic channel .

We also see how the thermal-noise maxima change significantly more with $`\zeta _i`$ than $`G`$ itself does; $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}(V)`$ is truly a fine marker for nonuniversal effects. Experimentally, this could well include the observation of higher-order phenomena (lead geometry, inter-subband transitions , etc.) not covered at our present level of treatment.

It is instructive to continue the study of $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}(V)`$ down to low EMFs, comparing it with the well known Landauer-Büttiker “noise crossover” formula, which combines all excess thermal noise into a single entity with shot noise :

$$𝒮^{\mathrm{LB}}(V)=\underset{i}{}4G_ik_\mathrm{B}T\left(1\frac{G_i}{G_0}\right)\left[\frac{eV}{2k_\mathrm{B}T}\mathrm{coth}\left(\frac{eV}{2k_\mathrm{B}T}\right)1\right].$$
(18)
The quantitative contrast between $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$ and the total LB noise is made clear in Fig. 3 for the identical two-band situation of Fig. 2, but now at $`V=0.9k_\mathrm{B}T/e`$. Even in this low-field regime we find that $`𝒮^{\mathrm{xs}}`$, computed strictly within an orthodox and fully gauge-invariant kinetic approach, still dominates the result of the widely held crossover model The Landauer-Büttiker noise formula is not inherently gauge-invariant. Therefore its underlying dynamical fluctuations are not guaranteed to conserve charge. See Ref. , remarks following their Eq. (51)..

## VI Conclusion: a New Ballistic-Noise Experiment

We end by recalling the apparent impasse raised by the de Picciotto et al. data , vis à vis the LB theory’s categorical and uncompromising prediction of perfect, universal conductance steps . Resolution depends crucially on the physics of the noninvasive probes. Measurements of the nonequilibrium noise would provide a unique opportunity to reveal how, precisely, that physics acts.

Suppose the noninvasive contacts do access the local potentials. Had they detected any voltage at all at probe separation $`l`$ inside the wire, it would have been the resistivity-dipole potential $`El`$. The probes saw nothing. This implies total neutralization of Landauer’s resistivity dipole within the wire body; $`E=0`$. Its canceling counter-fields must be from dipoles sitting hard by the boundaries. That makes them highly localized.

The notion of strong additional localized counter-charges, over and above the natural Hartree displacement  that sets up the resistivity dipole in the first place, is energetically unlikely. Landauer’s self-consistent dipole is the fundamental element of mesoscopic transport . Further substructures, at screening scales shorter than natural, would invite a logical reductio ad absurdum.

Now suppose instead that the probes couple capacitively to the 1D wire. At most, they will record variations of carrier density between their locations. But the wire is uniform, so there is no variation. Capacitive probes will report no difference. Thus there is no reason for the resistivity dipole to cancel out.

The conclusion of Ref. , that their noninvasive probe arrangement gives genuine and direct access to internal voltages, may now be checked by quite different means. The nonequilibrium thermal ballistic noise (totally separate from any considerations of the shot noise ) can provide independent experimental verification.

In brief: if the driving field $`E`$ throughout the ballistic structure is indeed zero, there will be little excess noise of the kind we predict. If, on the other hand, $`E0`$ then thermal noise must appear – and in copious amounts – at the subband crossings.

Here, the outcome is plain in terms of nonequilibrium noise. The experimental import of our work is much wider, however. It covers not just noise in a heterostructure-based device , but also fluctuations at the intense fields sustainable in metallic carbon nanotubes . There, the quantum-confinement energies are huge by comparison with normal semiconductor-based 1D channels.

Carbon nanotubes provide a far more challenging testing-ground for transport and fluctuation theories in the extremely high-field domain. It is an area that is certainly wide open – and ripe – for exciting explorations.