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# QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS OF CHARGE AND PHASE TRANSITIONS OF A LARGE COULOMB-BLOCKADED QUANTUM DOT

## I INTRODUCTION

Quantum dots are nanometer-scale structures hosting a few to a few thousand electrons  and coming in a variety of forms. Quantum dots can be realized as small metallic islands , gated two-dimensional electron gases in semiconductor heterostructures , and most recently as short segments of metallic carbon nanotubes . The latter two realizations are of particular interest as they exhibit a remarkable tunability. Through the application of metallic gates upon either the heterostructures or upon the nanotubes, the chemical potential together with the strength of any putative dot-lead coupling can be tuned. The associated flexibility afforded to the experimentalist has helped to make quantum dots and their related phenomena an active area of research.

One such phenomenon that has been closely studied, both experimentally and theoretically, is Coulomb blockade. Coulomb blockade in its simplest form is a fascinating effect arising from the discrete nature of electrons combined with their mutual repulsion . The origin of the effect is entirely classical. Imagine charging a dot of capacitance $`C`$ biased by a gate voltage $`V_G`$. The classical electrostatic energy of the dot, $`E_{cl}=Q^2/(2C)QV_G`$, is minimized if the dot charge $`Q`$ equals $`CV_G`$. But the dot charge can only change in the increments of the electron charge $`e`$, and the dimensionless gate voltage $`n_x=CV_G/e`$ is generally not an integer . Typically there is only one integer closest to $`n_x`$ which determines the number of electrons on the dot to be $`n=Q/e=[n_x]`$. Half-integer values of $`n_x`$ play a special role because now two states of the dot with $`n=n_x\pm 1/2`$ electrons have the same energy. Thus as $`n_x`$ is varied between two nearest half-integers, the dot charge is fixed and quantized (the Coulomb blockade) but at half-integer values of $`n_x`$ the blockade is momentarily lifted, and the dot charge changes discontinuously by $`e`$, leading to the celebrated Coulomb staircase .

This simple classical picture is modified by quantum charge fluctuations arising from the coupling to a reservoir of electrons. Quantum mechanical tunneling of charge between connecting leads and the dot has been argued to smear the Coulomb staircase even at zero temperature . Although originally treated perturbatively , the smearing finds its strongest support in a connection of the quantum dot problem to a highly anisotropic Kondo problem . In the limit of low transparency, i.e. a small tunneling matrix element, and of large Coulomb repulsion, the charge dynamics on the dot can be approximated by that of a two-level system, with the levels corresponding to charge states of the dot differing by unit charge . Changing the charge on the dot then becomes akin to flipping an impurity spin-1/2. In Kondo language the net charge on the dot parallels the magnetization of the impurity spin while the deviation of the gate voltage from the half-integer $`n_x`$ is akin to a Zeeman field applied to the Kondo spin. For a single-channel Kondo problem, the spin susceptibility is well-known to be finite at zero applied field. This correspondingly necessitates the smearing of any discrete charge jump with the variation of the gate voltage.

The connection to a Kondo problem applies in the weak-tunneling limit. The opposite high-transparency limit was treated by both Flensberg  and Matveev . (For a comprehensive review of both cases, see ; for more recent work on this limit see .) On the basis of this work it was possible to conjecture that the smeared Coulomb staircase of the weak-tunneling limit smoothly evolves as tunneling is increased into a strictly linear function of the gate voltage. These predictions  found partial confirmation in recent experimental work. The agreement between theory and experiment was limited by finite temperature effects, with the temperature of the quantum dot being far in excess of the putative Kondo temperature.

In this paper the role of quantum fluctuations is re-examined for a large quantum dot - the dot whose charging energy $`e^2/(2C)`$ is substantially larger than the distance between the energy levels on the dot. We show that as the strength of the tunneling is tuned, changing the dot from open to closed, a modified Coulomb staircase reappears under certain circumstance with tunneling non-zero. In particular we find that quantum fluctuations need not destroy the Coulomb blockade. We in part arrive at our general conclusion by relating the zero-temperature dynamics of spinless electrons to the classical statistical mechanics of a one-dimensional Ising model with ferromagnetic interactions decaying as the inverse-square of distance. Within the Ising universality class, we find that all experimental systems must be either of the Kondo subclass (to which the connection to the Kondo system given in  applies) or of a novel tricritical type.

The organization of the paper is as follows. In Section II we set up the problem in general terms, showing how one understands the problem as belonging to the Ising universality class. We demonstrate how the two subclasses we identify can be differentiated in terms of the form of their effective potentials. In Sections III and IV we examine these two subclasses, the Kondo and tricritical subclass, in detail. In Section V we discuss our results.

## II FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM

The experimental setup we have in mind is a gated quantum dot placed in a large magnetic field (so that the electrons can be considered spinless) coupled to a single reservoir (lead) via a narrow constriction - the quantum point contact . A related setup has been experimentally realized .

Regardless of the nature of the reservoir, the problem is effectively one-dimensional . If the reservoir is high-dimensional, the point nature of the contact allows one to dimensionally reduce the electrons in the lead through a partial wave expansion, keeping only the s-waves, to a one-dimensional problem in much the same way the problem of Kondo impurities embedded in bulk metals can be reduced to a one-dimensional problem .

The most general phenomenological Euclidean action for the problem is

$$A=\frac{\pi \mathrm{}}{g}\underset{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overset{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }|\omega ||\varphi (\omega )|^2+𝑑\tau E_0(\varphi ,n_x),$$
(1)
where

$$E_0(\varphi ,n_x)=U(\varphi )+\frac{e^2(\varphi n_x)^2}{2C}.$$
(2)
Here $`\tau `$ is the imaginary time, and $`\varphi (\tau )`$ is a fluctuating electron number field - the expectation value of $`\varphi (\tau )`$ gives the average number of electrons on the dot, $`n=<\varphi >`$.

The first kinetic term in the above action arises in several steps. In the limit of large dot size the time scale by which electrons scattered through the point contact return to the scattering point is much larger than any other time scale in the problem . The point contact then connects in effect two reservoirs of electrons. Upon dimensionally reducing the electrons in the higher-dimensional leads, one obtains a kinetic term appropriate to one-dimensional electrons. Bosonization of the electrons leads to a kinetic term of the form

$$𝑑x𝑑\tau (^\mu \varphi _\mu \varphi ).$$

While the term in the action describing tunneling between the dot and the lead is naturally restricted to a spatial point \[first term of (2)\], it was shown  that the Coulomb charging \[second term of (2)\] can also be represented as acting at a single spatial point. As these two interaction terms are restricted solely to a single point we can integrate out the bosonic degrees of freedom away from the point contact. Doing so reproduces the first term of (1) with $`g=1`$ which corresponds to noninteracting electrons in the constriction . The frequency cutoff, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, that the kinetic term is equipped with is of order the ratio of the sound velocity to the electron density (both in the vicinity of point contact).

In (1) we look at a somewhat more general problem by allowing the one-dimensional electrons to interact through the inclusion of the dimensionless Luttinger liquid parameter $`g`$ which is generally different from unity. This case can be realized if both the reservoir and the dot are one-dimensional systems (having common $`g`$) such as quantum wires, metallic carbon nanotubes or fractional quantum Hall edges .

The perturbing energy $`E_0(\varphi ,n_x)`$, as previously indicated, consists of two terms acting at a single point: a term by which electrons tunnel through the point contact and a term expressing the charging energy of the dot. The former may generally be represented as a term both periodic and even in $`\varphi `$,

$$U(\varphi +1)=U(\varphi );U(\varphi )=U(\varphi ).$$

The latter, charging, term takes the natural form $`\frac{e^2}{2C}(\varphi n_x)^2`$. The function $`U(\varphi )`$ having its minima at integer and maxima at half-integer $`\varphi `$ reflects the preferred tendency for the dot to host an integer number of electrons. The classical limit  is recovered by “closing” the dot, i.e. by increasing the amplitude of $`U`$ to infinity. On the other hand, the regime of perfect transmission is reached by “opening” the dot, i.e. by decreasing the amplitude of $`U`$ to zero. While in the limit of almost perfect transmission, the form

$$U(\varphi )\mathrm{cos}2\pi \varphi $$

was derived in  through bosonization, the precise functional form of $`U(\varphi )`$ should depend on the details of the constriction.

The above action finds applications beyond that of quantum dots. The inspection of (1) and (2) reveals that in the low-energy limit the Coulomb blockade problem is dual to that of a single-junction SQUID  with a Caldeira-Leggett  dissipative coupling to the environment. Here the magnetic flux through the SQUID loop is dual to the charge of the dot $`Q`$ (the flux quantum $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is dual to the electron charge $`e`$), and so all our conclusions will have their dual counterparts. This example of electric-magnetic duality is discussed in further detail by Likharev .

Alternatively by viewing the imaginary time coordinate $`\tau `$ in (1) as a fictitious space direction we arrive at an effective Hamiltonian defining a classical statistical mechanics problem . The above action can be then recognized as describing a one-dimensional version of the problem of multilayer adsorption . In this problem a film in contact with a liquid is adsorbed onto an attractive substrate. The film thickness (controlled by external pressure) is finite as the free energy of the material of the film exceeds that of the liquid. For thick films the competition between the substrate attraction and the confining effect of external pressure can be modeled by a parabola centered near optimal film thickness . For a crystalline film there is also an additional periodic contribution into the free energy which oscillates with the number of adsorbed atomic layers. If the field $`\varphi `$ is regarded as a number of adsorbed atomic layers, then (2) can be identified with the uniform part of the film free energy. The $`|\omega |`$ dependence of the first term of (1) translates into a $`1/\tau ^2`$ repulsion occuring between two parts of the film having different heights and separated by distance $`\tau `$. The dependence of the film thickness upon pressure is analogous to $`n(n_x)`$.

In what follows we will be interested in the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence. This quantity has been shown to be directly accessible experimentally. Through fabricating two quantum dots in close proximity, the authors of  were able to measure the charge on one dot by monitoring the current through the other. The $`n(n_x)`$ dependence has an inversion symmetry about every half-integer point $`n=n_x`$, and the whole dependence can be reconstructed from any segment of $`n(n_x)`$ of unit length. Thus without the loss of generality we restrict ourselves to the interval of $`n`$ and $`n_x`$ between $`0`$ and $`1`$.

In order to compute the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence we need to minimize the full ground-state energy $`E(n,n_x)`$ of the system, in principle computable from (1) and (2). Qualitatively the outcome can be anticipated without calculation by noticing that akin to $`E_0(\varphi ,n_x)`$, the ground-state energy $`E(n,n_x)`$ as a function of $`n`$ must be a sum of a periodic and parabolic functions. Here there are two main cases to consider.

Case (i): In the first case the maxima of the periodic part of $`E`$ are sufficiently sharply peaked and the ground-state energy $`E`$ as function of $`n`$ in the interval $`0n1`$ sees either one or two minima. Fig.1 illustrates this case. The top row shows two possible sketches of the ground-state energy as a function of $`n`$ at the degeneracy point $`n_x=1/2`$, and two subsequent rows demonstrate how these curves tilt as $`n_x`$ increases. The solid curves at the bottom row show equilibrium $`n(n_x)`$ dependencies found by minimizing the ground-state energy.

In the first scenario, pictured in Fig.1a, there is a single minimum in $`E`$, the position of which smoothly changes as $`n_x`$ is varied. The population of the dot, $`n(n_x)`$, is then continuous and will look as sketched in the bottommost figure of Fig.1a. In the presence of two minima, pictured in Fig.1b, a modified Coulomb staircase is recovered upon adiabatic variation of $`n_x`$. This staircase differs from its classical counterpart  in that the population plateaus will have a nonzero slope and the jump in dot population occuring at $`n_x=1/2`$ between the two degenerate minima is less than unity. The inter-plateau jumps are first-order phase transitions, and as such they can be accompanied by hysteretic phenomena. Indeed if one changes $`n_x`$ non-adiabatically, the system stays at the left well until the well ceases to exist and only then will it jump into the remaining right well. The resulting $`n(n_x)`$ dependence will deviate from the equilibrium staircase. Upon decreasing $`n_x`$ a different path, $`n(n_x)`$, will be taken and a hysteresis loop will be produced as shown in the bottommost sketch of Fig.1b by the dotted lines with arrows.

These two scenarios are distinguished primarily by the amplitude of the periodic part, and one can imagine going between the staircase and continuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependencies by closing or opening the dot. Alternatively however, one can imagine varying the reservoir interactions (varying $`g`$) or changing the dot size, i.e. its capacitance $`C`$.

Case (ii): If the maxima of the periodic part of $`E`$ are sufficiently flat, the ground-state energy, $`E`$, as a function of $`n`$ can have as many as three distinct minima. Fig.2, in a fashion similar to Fig.1, illustrates this more complicated case. The three cases presented in Fig.2 are connected by varying the amplitude of the periodic part of the energy.

In the column (a) of Fig.2, the amplitude of the periodic part is weak and the ground-state energy has a single minimum for any $`n_x`$. This results in a continuous dependence $`n(n_x)`$ depicted at the bottom of Fig. 2a. As the amplitude of $`U`$ is increased, one arrives at column (b) of Fig. 2. When the gate voltage is tuned to degeneracy point, $`n_x=1/2`$, the ground-state energy has a global minimum at $`n=1/2`$ and degenerate metastable minima at $`n`$ close to $`0`$ and $`1`$. If one increases $`n_x`$ adiabatically away from $`1/2`$, the number of electrons on the dot changes continuously (from a half-integer value) until the depths of the “half-integer” and the right “integer” minima become equal. This happens at a critical value of $`n_x`$ in the range, $`1/2<n_x<1`$, and a first-order phase transition onto the “integer” plateau occurs. Upon further increasing $`n_x`$, the state of the dot changes continuously until the next “half-integer” minimum comes into play. As a result, a staircase with both integer and half-integer plateaus is produced, as sketched at the bottom of column (b). We will arrive at qualitatively the same $`n(n_x)`$ dependence if “integer” minima are not present at the top energy curve but develop and become global in tuning the gate voltage away from $`n_x=1/2`$.

As the amplitude of the periodic part of the potential is increased further one arrives at column (c) of Fig. 2. Here the ground-state energy has degenerate minima at $`n`$ close to $`0`$ and $`1`$ and a metastable minimum at $`n=1/2`$. If initially the dot state corresponds to the leftmost well, and one starts adiabatically increasing $`n_x`$ away from $`1/2`$ the energy curve tilts, and the system jumps into the rightmost well. Upon further increase of $`n_x`$ the average number of electrons on the dot increases continuously until the next degeneracy point is reached. As a result a modified Coulomb staircase, as given at the bottom of column (c) in Fig. 2, is recovered and the presence of the third metastable minimum does not qualitatively affect the dot occupancy (compare with Fig. 1b). Hysteresis is also possible in this case as shown in Figs.2b and 2c.

We can reconsider both case (i) and (ii) from a unified viewpoint by focusing solely on the charge degeneracy points $`n_x=1/2`$. Qualitatively $`E_0(\varphi ,1/2)`$ appears as in the top rows of Figs.1 and 2 and can be described by

$$E_0u_2s^2+u_4s^4+u_6s^6,$$

with $`s=\varphi 1/2`$ (the coefficients $`u_{2,4}`$ can be of both signs while $`u_6>0`$). When employed in (1), we arrive at a one-dimensional continuous-spin Ising system with $`1/\tau ^2`$ ferromagnetic exchange interactions. A small deviation from the charge degeneracy points can be modeled by applying a weak fictitious magnetic field $`hn_x1/2`$, i.e. by adding a $`hs`$ term to the expansion (an equivalent argument using the language of the Kondo model has been given by Matveev ). If $`u_4>0`$, the sixth order term can be ignored and we obtain the standard long-ranged Ising model, corresponding to case (i) discussed above. With $`u_4<0`$ stability demands we keep $`u_6`$, and we obtain a long-ranged version of the tricritical Ising model  and so reproduce the findings of case (ii).

We note that recently, while studying the problem of occupation of a resonant level (for example, an impurity or a small quantum dot) coupled to a Luttinger liquid, Furusaki and Matveev  also noticed a connection to the classical one-dimensional Ising model with interactions decaying as inverse square of distance.

In the next two sections we consider the cases (i) and (ii) in more quantitative detail.

## III KONDO/ISING TYPE

In this section we consider a dot whose potential, $`E_0(\varphi )`$, can be approximated by a two-well potential and is thus in the ordinary (as opposed to tricritical) long-ranged Ising universality class. The truncation of charge fluctuations of the quantum dot to that of a two-level system performed in  maps the dot problem to the conventional Ising model with long-ranged $`1/\tau ^2`$ interactions  or equivalently the single-channel Kondo model .

The physical consequences of this equivalence can be derived from an examination of the renormalization-group flows of the long-range Ising/Kondo model. To understand these flows we follow the treatment of the dual dissipative SQUID problem , and introduce two parameters, the distance between the two wells of the potential $`q`$, and the (dimensionless) inter-well rate of tunneling $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Under a renormalization-group transformation these parameters flow at lowest order as follows :

$$\frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }}{d\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }t)}=(1q^2/g)\mathrm{\Delta },\frac{dq^2}{d\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }t)}=q^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2.$$
(3)
Here $`t`$ is the running scale and the equations describe how the two parameters renormalize upon integrating out high-frequency modes. The initial conditions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`q_0`$, can be computed from the form of the action in (1). An example of such a computation done in the SQUID context may be found in .

The flow diagram corresponding to (3) is sketched in Fig. 3.

The flows can be divided into two main regions, corresponding to the ordered and the disordered phases of the Ising model.

In the former case are systems satisfying $`q_0^2/g1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2/2q_0^2/g1\mathrm{ln}(q_0^2/g)`$, i.e. those to the right of the separatrix $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2/2=q^2/g1\mathrm{ln}(q^2/g)`$, are carried by the flow to a stable fixed line, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$, $`q^2/g1`$. The absence of tunneling between the two minima of the potential indicates that we are in the ordered phase of the Ising model. The functional form of $`n(n_x)`$ is as shown in Fig.1b, and the dot population discontinuity, $`\mathrm{\Delta }n`$ (given by $`q`$), at $`n_x=1/2`$ satisfies the inequality

$$\mathrm{\Delta }ng^{1/2}.$$
(4)
The equality is reached at the Ising phase transition point, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2/2=q_0^2/g1\mathrm{ln}(q_0^2/g)`$, where the population jump $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=g^{1/2}`$ depends only on the properties of the reservoir. This universal relationship is analogous to that between the magnetization jump, the amplitude of inverse-square interaction and the phase transition temperature of the Ising model .

Although systems to the left of the separatrix $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2/2=q^2/g1\mathrm{ln}(q^2/g)`$ are taken by the flow outside of the range of applicability of Eqs. (3), the effective tunneling, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, between the two minima of the two-well potential can be seen to increase. We are thus in the disordered phase of the Ising model. Here the dependence, $`n(n_x)`$, is continuous as in Fig.1a. Although the Ising transition is continuous, in going from Fig.1a to Fig.1b, the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence changes discontinuously. In the disordered phase, the ground-state energy slightly away from $`n_x=1/2`$ is given by

$$E=(\pi \mathrm{}/g\xi )<s>^2h<s>,$$

where the dependence on the correlation length $`\xi `$ is dictated by the one-dimensional nature of the problem. Minimization with respect to $`<s>`$ leads us to the equation,

$$sn1/2(g\xi /(2\pi \mathrm{}))(n_x1/2),$$
(5)
describing the shape of the smeared population step.

In classical limit of closed dot, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0`$, the distance between the minima of the two-well potential is unity, $`q_0=1`$, which implies that if the electrons in the constriction are repulsive, $`g<1`$, these systems belong to the ordered phase of Ising model. Allowing weak tunneling, i.e. sufficiently small $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, renormalizes the population step downwards, and we arrive at the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence of the kind shown in Fig.1b. At sufficiently large critical $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0c}`$ the Ising phase transition takes place, and for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0>\mathrm{\Delta }_{0c}`$ the dependence $`n(n_x)`$ is continuous, as in Fig.1a.

In this same classical limit, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0`$, but with the electrons in the constriction attractive, $`g>1`$, we find ourselves on the unstable part of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ fixed line. Here allowing infinitesimally small tunneling, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, immediately destroys the classical staircase, thus leading to the continuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependence, Fig.1a. For $`g>1`$, the flow starts out vertically away from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ line. In order to compute $`\xi `$ to lowest order in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, the renormalization of $`q`$ given by the second of Eqs.(3) can be ignored. Integrating the first of Eqs.(3) up to a scale at which $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ determines the correlation length to be $`\xi \mathrm{\Lambda }^1\mathrm{\Delta }_0^{g/(1g)}`$. Physically the difference between the repulsive and attractive cases can be understood by noticing that interparticle attraction enhances quantum fluctuations in the constriction, thus making it easier for the electrons to enter and leave the dot; the effect of repulsion is opposite.

The free-electron case, $`g=1`$ is the most delicate to treat because it separates regimes which are stable and unstable against perturbations of infinitesimally weak tunneling. If the function $`U(\varphi )`$ is a periodic comb of delta-function wells of large but finite amplitude, then one still has $`q_0=1`$. Solving Eqs.(3) with the initial condition $`q_0=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_01`$, we find $`\xi \mathrm{\Lambda }^1\mathrm{exp}(\pi /2\mathrm{\Delta }_0)`$. If this $`\xi `$ is inserted in (5), then the shape of the smeared population step to leading order in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ coincides with that given in Ref. . For all other periodic functions $`U(\varphi )`$ one has $`q_0<1`$, and the locus of the corresponding models is shown in Fig.3 by the dotted line. If the initial values $`q_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ are not below the outgoing, leftward separatrix in Fig. 3, then $`\xi \mathrm{\Lambda }^1\mathrm{exp}(c_1/\mathrm{\Delta }_0)`$ where the constant $`c_1`$ interpolates between $`\pi /2`$ (the $`q=1`$ axis) and unity (the left separatrix). If the initial values are below the separatrix, then one has $`\xi \mathrm{\Lambda }^1\mathrm{exp}[(c_2/\mathrm{\Delta }_0)\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_0^1]`$ where $`c_2`$ is another constant. To conclude, if the electrons in the constriction are noninteracting and we are in the Kondo/Ising universality subclass, then the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is always continuous, as shown in Fig.1a, for arbitrarily small tunneling coupling .

## IV TRICRITICAL ISING TYPE

The results derived so far examine the case where at $`n_x=1/2`$ the effective potential energy can be approximated by a two-well potential. But this assumption is invalid for potentials whose periodic part has sufficiently flat maxima and thus whose energy dependencies appear qualitatively similar to the top row of Fig.2. Moreover, if even the two-state assumption is correct for the bare potential, renormalization of truncated two-state potential by zero-point motion might be qualitatively different from renormalization of the full potential. In such cases the tricritical behavior as pictured in Fig.2 will be overlooked.

Therefore it is important to reexamine the problem without making the two-state assumption. In this section we consider exactly such a case where approximating the potential energy as two wells is inappropriate. In what follows we choose the periodic part of the potential entering (2) to be $`U(\varphi )\mathrm{cos}2\pi \varphi `$, and rewrite (2) as

$$E_0(\varphi ,n_x)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}}{g}[\pi b(\varphi n_x)^2\frac{v}{2\pi }\mathrm{cos}2\pi \varphi ].$$
(6)
Here $`b=e^2g/(2\pi C\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{})`$ is the dimensionless charging energy, while the dimensionless parameter $`v`$ in the limit $`v1`$ can be expressed in terms of the reflection amplitude at the point contact. This potential (6) models Coulomb blockade , SQUIDs , and multilayer adsorption phenomena . Surprisingly we find that the model (6) does not belong to the Kondo/Ising universality subclass although naïvely for $`n_x=1/2`$ the two-state assumption would appear to be reasonable.

This model is readily understood if the classical limit, $`g0`$, is taken in the constriction. Then the fluctuations of the field, $`\varphi `$, controlled by the first term of (1) are frozen. To find the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence, we have to minimize (6) with respect to $`\varphi =n`$. The outcome is known from the SQUID context : for $`v>b`$ the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence qualitatively looks like that shown in Fig. 1b (hysteretic SQUID regime). If, on the other hand, $`v<b`$, the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is of the kind presented in Fig. 1a. The phase transition at $`v=b`$ is continuous with the population jump which grows from zero as one enters the staircase phase.

### A Scaling analysis

To understand the role of quantum fluctuations in the constriction (nonzero $`g`$) we first treat $`E_0(\varphi ,n_x)`$ perturbatively (i.e. $`v`$ small, putting us in the high-transparency limit). The corresponding lowest-order renormalization-group equations

$$\frac{d𝚟}{d\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }t)}=(1g)𝚟,\frac{d𝚋}{d\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }t)}=𝚋,$$
(7)
parallel those given by Huse  in the context of the adsorption phenomena. The parameters $`v`$ and $`b`$ of (6) serve as initial values to (7). We note that due to nonanalytic $`|\omega |`$ dependence in (1) there is no renormalization of $`g`$ to any order. This is in contrast to the adsorption phenomena where the corresponding renormalization of an interface stiffness coefficient is an important part of physics.

With $`b=0`$, the first equation in (7) is known to describe the physics of a Luttinger liquid in the presence of a weak point inhomogeneity : there is a phase transition at $`g=1`$ which separates insulating, $`g<1`$, from conducting regimes, $`g>1`$. The second equation, solely due to the scaling transformation, tells us that the charging energy is always a relevant perturbation. In $`g1`$ regime, $`v`$ does not decrease under the flow, and Coulomb blockade can potentially occur. In this regime integrating the first equation of (7) until $`v1`$ provides us with a length scale $`\xi _v\mathrm{\Lambda }^1v^{1/(g1)}`$, i.e. a longitudinal correlation length . In the absence of the charging term, at scales exceeding $`\xi _v`$, the insulating behavior sets in and the fluctuations of the field, $`\varphi `$, are suppressed.

The presence of the charging energy introduces another length scale into the problem, $`\xi _b(\mathrm{\Lambda }b)^1`$, as can be inferred either from (1) and (6), or from integrating the second equation of (7). In the absence of the periodic term at the scales exceeding $`\xi _b`$, the fluctuations of $`\varphi `$ are suppressed.

The evolution of the Coulomb blockade as a function of the system parameters can be understood qualitatively as a result of the interplay between the scales $`\xi _v`$ and $`\xi _b`$ (both assumed to be much larger than the microscopic scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$). If $`\xi _b\xi _v`$ the fluctuations of $`\varphi `$ are suppressed by the charging term before the periodic term comes into play. This implies that the physics is dominated by the charging term, the dot population $`n`$ tracks the gate voltage $`n_x`$ with electronic discreteness a small effect. The $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is continuous as in Figs.1a and 2a. If, on the other hand, $`\xi _b\xi _v`$, the fluctuations are suppressed by the periodic term before the charging effects come into play. This means that the physics is dominated by the particle discreteness with $`n(n_x)`$ correspondingly in the form of a staircase. The two regimes are separated by a phase transition occuring at $`\xi _b\xi _v`$, i.e. for

$$vb^{g1}1\mathrm{or}g1\frac{\mathrm{ln}(1/v)}{\mathrm{ln}(1/b)}.$$
(8)
We note that (8) has roughly the correct limit $`bv`$ as $`g0`$, and implies that for $`g=1`$ a phase transition occurs at some $`v`$ which is $`b`$-independent in the limit $`b0`$. We now show that the scaling condition in (8) underspecifies the physics and that there are in fact two phase transitions occuring when $`\xi _b\xi _v`$.

### B Variational analysis

For a more quantitative analysis we use Feynman’s  variational principle for the ground-state energy:

$$EE_1=𝙴_0+(T/\mathrm{})<AA_0>_0$$
(9)
where $`T`$ is the temperature, and $`\mathrm{}/T`$ has a meaning of the system size in the $`\tau `$ direction; the $`T=0`$ limit will be taken at the end. The notation $`<>_0`$ denotes expectation values computed using an arbitrary reference action $`A_0`$, and $`𝙴_0`$ is the ground-state energy corresponding to $`A_0`$.

This method has been remarkably successful in analyzing the roughening phase transition , multilayer adsorption phenomena , wetting transitions , and a variety of problems of quantum mechanics and quantum-field theory . Perhaps most relevant to our purposes, has been the application of the variation principle to the problem of quantum Brownian motion in a periodic potential  which is mathematically identical to the single-impurity problem  and formally the $`b=0`$ limit of the Coulomb blockade problem (1), (2). Here the variational method provides exact description of the phase transition at $`g=1`$ .

It is physically reasonable to select the trial action $`A_0`$ in a Gaussian form similar to that in  and :

$$A_0=\frac{\pi \mathrm{}}{g}[\underset{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overset{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{}}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }|\omega ||\varphi (\omega )|^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }m𝑑\tau (\varphi n)^2].$$
(10)
The dimensionless variational parameters which include the familiar number of electrons on the dot $`n`$ and a new parameter $`m`$ (controlling the extent of fluctuations about $`n`$) are selected to minimize $`E_1`$ in (9).

Using (10) the upper bound $`E_1`$ entering (9) can be computed. Ignoring unimportant additive and overall factors we have

$`E_1`$ $``$ $`(1+b)\mathrm{ln}(1+m)b\mathrm{ln}(m)`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`g^1[2\pi ^2b(nn_x)^2v({\displaystyle \frac{m}{1+m}})^g\mathrm{cos}2\pi n].`$ (12)
Minimizing $`E_1`$ with respect to $`m`$ and $`n`$ we arrive at the system of two equations

$$mb=v(\frac{m}{1+m})^g\mathrm{cos}2\pi n$$
(13)
$$2\pi b(nn_x)+v(\frac{m}{1+m})^g\mathrm{sin}2\pi n=0$$
(14)
which are mathematically identical to those of Weeks  derived in the context of adsorption phenomena.

The most valuable feature of the variational approach is its nonperturbative nature. The perturbative renormalization-group treatment (7) is included as a special case as can be seen from an argument which parallels that of Brézin, Halperin, and Leibler originally given in the context of wetting transitions :

Let us split the fluctuating number field $`\varphi `$ into a “slow”, $`\varphi _0`$, and a “fast” part, $`\varphi _1`$, so that $`\varphi =\varphi _0+\varphi _1`$, and “integrate out” fast degrees of freedom $`\varphi _1`$ treating (6) as a perturbation. This turns (6) into its renormalized (but unrescaled) counterpart

$$E_L=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}}{g}[\pi b(\varphi n_x)^2\frac{v(L\mathrm{\Lambda })^g}{2\pi }\mathrm{cos}2\pi \varphi ],$$
(15)
where the subscript $`0`$ is dropped for brevity, and at the scale $`L`$ all high-frequency fluctuations are integrated out. We note that equations (7) and (15) are equivalent in terms of the physics they describe. The number of electrons $`n`$ on the dot, and the correlation length $`L`$ can be found from the conditions similar to those of ,

$$[E_L/\varphi ]_n=0,(2\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}/g)(L\mathrm{\Lambda })^1=[^2E_L/\varphi ^2]_n,$$
(16)
where the dependence on $`L`$ in the second equation is dictated by the $`|\omega |`$ dependence in (1). It is straightforward to verify that substituting (15) in (16) produces two equations which are just the $`m1`$ limit of (13) and (14) provided the identification $`m=(L\mathrm{\Lambda })^1`$ is made.

To summarize, the $`m1`$ limit of the variational analysis is equivalent to the perturbative renormalization-group treatment.

Below we analyze the coupled system of equations (13) and (14), and whenever multiple solutions are found, the one giving the lowest ground-state energy (11) is selected. We make two preliminary observations. Firstly we note that solving (13) provides us with a periodic $`m(n+1)=m(n)`$ dependence which after substituting into (11) results in a function which is a sum of a periodic and parabolic functions as we already anticipated. Secondly, for $`n_x`$ integer or half-integer Eq.(14) has a solution $`n=n_x`$ as expected.

### C Free electrons in the constriction: $`𝐠=\mathrm{𝟏}`$

For $`g=1`$, Eq. (13) admits an analytic solution, and thus the ground-state energy (11) can be explicitly computed. The results are simplest in the limit $`m1`$. In this limit the solution to (13) is given by

$$m=\frac{b}{1v\mathrm{cos}2\pi n},$$
(17)
valid for $`b1`$ and $`v<1`$. Equation (17) shows that fluctuations around integer dot population are always smaller compared to those for a half-integer number of electrons on the dot. Substituting (17) into (14) we find the $`n_x(n)`$ dependence which parallels the result of Weeks :

$$n_x=n+\frac{v\mathrm{sin}2\pi n}{2\pi (1v\mathrm{cos}2\pi n)}.$$
(18)
The remarkable feature of (18) is its universality \- there is no dependence on the dot capacitance in the $`b1`$ limit. We emphasize that the result (18) goes beyond the original model (6): any even periodic function $`U(\varphi )`$ from (2) can be decomposed into a Fourier series consisting of cosine functions. For $`g=1`$ the leading harmonic \[accounted for by (6)\] responsible for (18) is marginal \[see the first of Eqs.(7)\] while higher harmonics are irrelevant. In the limit $`b0`$ the contribution of higher-order harmonics vanishes (unless the corresponding Fourier coefficients are unreasonably large which we assume to be not the case).

At $`g=1`$ the variational argument gives two critical values of the dimensionless amplitude, $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$: the lower $`v_{c1}`$ marks the onset of the regime with half-integer plateaus while the upper $`v_{c2}`$ gives the transition to a regime solely with integer plateaus, i.e. a modified Coulomb staircase.

To determine $`v_{c1}`$ one can study the monotonicity of the $`n_x(n)`$ function as given in (18). For sufficiently small $`v`$, the $`n_x(n)`$ dependence is monotonic. For $`v1`$ solving (18) to lowest order in $`v`$ reproduces the result of Matveev ,

$$n=n_x(v/2\pi )sin2\pi n_x.$$

As $`v`$ becomes larger, $`n_x(n)`$ ceases to be monotonic. Defined when $`dn_x/dn`$ vanishes, this happens at $`v_{c1}=\sqrt{3}/2<1`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}2\pi n_c=1/\sqrt{3}`$ . The corresponding gate voltage $`n_x`$ is not a half-integer, a first indication that the lower critical value $`v_{c1}`$ separates continuous, Fig. 2a, from discontinuous behaviour, Fig. 2b, with population plateaus centered both around the integer and half-integer number of electrons on the dot.

To better understand the phase diagram we look at the ground-state energy. Combining (11) and (13) for $`g=1`$, with (17), taking the limit $`m,b1`$ and dropping unimportant additive constants we arrive at the form,

$$E_1(n,n_x)b[\mathrm{ln}(1v\mathrm{cos}2\pi n)+2\pi ^2(nn_x)^2].$$
(19)
Comparing the periodic parts of (19) and (6) we conclude that quantum fluctuations sharpen integer minima and flatten half-integer maxima. The minimization of $`E_1`$ with respect to $`n`$ reproduces (18). For $`v<v_{c1}`$ the ground-state energy $`E_1`$ always has a unique minimum which results in a continuous $`n(n_x)`$. For $`v`$ just slightly above $`v_{c1}=\sqrt{3}/2`$ and $`n_x=1/2`$ the ground-state energy still has a global minimum at half-integer dot population. But upon deviating from $`n_x=1/2`$, a near integer minimum develops and eventually becomes global. The phase transition at $`v_{c1}`$ is continuous.

As $`v`$ is increased beyond $`\sqrt{3}/2`$, we come to the second transition. The approach to this transition is characterized by the deepening of two metastable minima close to $`n=0`$ and $`n=1`$ (Fig.2b) with $`n_x=1/2`$. The critical value $`v_{c2}`$ marks the point at which two near integer minima become equal in depth to the half-integer minimum. This is a first-order transition between the regimes sketched in Figs.2b and 2c. The second critical value can be estimated accurately analytically from the condition

$$E_1(1/2,1/2)=E_1(0,1/2),$$

resulting in $`v_{c2}\mathrm{tanh}(\pi ^2/4)0.9857<1`$. The true $`v_{c2}`$ is marginally smaller as the competing minimum is shifted slightly away from $`n=0`$. For $`v_{c2}<v<1`$ there are only population plateaus centered around integer number of electrons on the dot, although the ground-state energy always has a meta-stable minimum corresponding to a half-integer dot population.

Examples of the three regimes separated by $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$ are plotted in Fig.2 with values of $`v=0.8,0.97`$, and $`0.988`$ for (a)-(c) respectively. The continuous segments of the $`n(n_x)`$ plots were found by inverting (18) while the location of the first-order jumps was determined from the minimization of (19). The hysteretic behavior in Figs.2b and 2c arises when the inversion leads to multiple solutions and was determined by continuing the monotonic regime solution beyond the range where it is energetically favorable.

It is possible to determine the slopes $`dn/dn_x`$ of the plateaus (given that that the slope is non-zero, the language of plateaus is used figuratively). The slope of the integer plateaus given by $`1v`$ is rather flat in the range $`v_{c1}=\sqrt{3}/2<v<1`$. This flatness is a direct consequence of the sharpness of the near integer minima of the energy curves. For the half-integer plateaus over this same range of $`v`$ we find the slope to be much larger, $`1+v`$. This steepness is a consequence of the shallowness of the half-integer minima in the energy curves. Alternatively one can recast this in the language of the tricritical Ising model . Two adjacent integer plateaus are then regarded as two ordered Ising phases of opposite magnetization. The half-integer state of the dot is identified with the disordered (zero-magnetization) phase of the Ising model. On the $`n(n_x)`$ curves of Fig.2b the disordered phase coexists with both ordered phases. Equivalently upon increasing $`v`$, the disordered phase disappears gradually in the interval between $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$. On the other hand, for the systems of the Kondo/Ising type only ordered phases can coexist on the $`n(n_x)`$ curves. Correspondingly, increasing the amplitude of $`U`$ in (2) beyond some critical value leads the disordered phase to disappear altogether.

As was demonstrated in Section IIIB, the $`m1`$ limit of the variational treatment is equivalent to the perturbative renormalization-group analysis of the problem based on Eqs.(7) or equivalently Eqs.(15) and (16). We speculate on the grounds of the following plausibility argument that for the special case of free electrons, $`g=1`$, such an analysis becomes exact in the limit $`b0`$:

For $`b=0`$ the right-hand side of the first of Eqs.(7) is believed to vanish to all orders in $`v`$ if and only if $`g=1`$ . Equivalently this means that on taking the limit $`g=1`$ and $`b=0`$ in (15) one would arrive at an exact renormalized potential. On the other hand, in deriving Eqs.(17), (18), and (19) a small finite $`b`$ was kept, and the $`b0`$ limit was taken in the final formulas. It appears reasonable that higher order terms in $`b`$ not included in (15) will not affect the results in the $`b0`$ limit. Specifically, we argue that Eqs.(17), (18), and (19) solve the Coulomb blockade problem exactly for $`v<1`$ and $`b0`$.

For $`v1`$ the assumption $`m1`$ cannot be justified, and we need to return to the original system of equations (11)-(14). From numerical studies we find that for $`b1`$ and $`v1`$, the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence rapidly evolves into a near perfect staircase.

The foregoing analysis presumes $`b1`$. As $`b`$ increases, the slope of the integer plateaus, the critical values $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$, and the range of existence of the intermediate phase with half-integer plateaus all become larger. However no qualitative changes occur from what was found in the $`b0`$ limit.

### D Interacting electrons in the constriction: $`𝐠\mathrm{𝟏}`$

In general we find that our conclusions at $`g=1`$ are quantitatively but not qualitatively modified by the presence of interactions. Interactions change the level of quantum fluctuations in the system, making it easier ($`g>1`$) or more difficult ($`g<1`$) for the electrons to enter or leave the dot.

In the limit $`b,vb^{g1}1`$, Eqs. (13) and (14) give the continuous dependence

$$n=n_x(vb^{g1}/2\pi )\mathrm{sin}2\pi n_x,$$
(20)
thus generalizing the $`g=1`$ result of Matveev . If the electrons inside the constriction are attractive, $`g>1`$, Coulomb blockade effects are substantially weakened. The range of existence of the continuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependence grows compared to the noninteracting case; the critical values $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$ grow similarly. As $`g`$ goes to infinity the number of electrons on the dot $`n`$ rapidly approaches the gate voltage $`n_x`$. If, on the other hand, the electrons are repulsive, $`g<1`$, the effects of Coulomb blockade are enhanced. The range of existence of the continuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependence shrinks, and the critical values $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$ decrease approaching their common $`v=b`$ limit as $`g0`$.

Fig.4 shows the numerically derived phase diagram of the model (6) for $`b=0.1`$ and $`0g1`$. In between the two curves for $`v_{c1}`$ and $`v_{c2}`$ lies the phase with half-integer plateaus. These two curves meet at $`v_{c1}=v_{c2}=b`$ in the limit $`g0`$ as expected from (8). In further agreement with the scaling result (8) in the $`b1`$ limit, the critical curves take the form

$$v_{c1,2}(g)=a_{1,2}(g)b^{1g}$$

with $`a_{1,2}(0)=1`$, $`a_1(1)=\sqrt{3}/2`$, and $`a_2(1)0.98`$.

We also verified that except for $`g=0`$ the $`n_x=1/2`$ ground-state energy (11) always has a minimum at half-integer dot population: $`g=0`$, $`v=b`$ is a tricritical point of the model (6).

Fig.5 shows the numerically derived $`n(n_x)`$ dependencies for $`g=1/2`$, $`b=0.01`$, and (a) $`v=0.13`$, (b) $`v=0.16`$, and (c) $`v=0.2`$. The values of $`v`$ are selected to show continuous (a), and discontinuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependencies with integer-half-integer (b) and integer-integer (c) sequences of population plateaus.

## V DISCUSSION

The most intriguing prediction of Eqs.(11)-(14) is the existence of a range of parameters where the population of the dot jumps from a near integer value to a region of stable population centered about a half-integer value. The origin of this effect is the persistence of the half-integer minimum in the population dependence of the ground-state energy at the charge degeneracy points. The effect is quantum - the bare energy (6) does not have this property . For the effect to occur, the periodic part of the ground-state energy must have sufficiently flat maxima which the bare energy (6) does not have.

The effect is not entirely unexpected and resembles the classical effect of an inverted pendulum : if the point of support of a plane pendulum in a uniform gravitational field is subject to rapid oscillations, a new minimum in the effective potential energy can be induced. The quantum fluctuations of the dot population resemble oscillations of the support, and the mechanical analog of the SQUID (and of the Coulomb blockade problem) is a slight modification of the simple pendulum . The contribution to the pendulum’s potential energy from gravity is given by the second term of (6) with $`2\pi \varphi `$ analogous to the pendulum’s angular position. The first term of (6) describes a harmonic torsion bar one end of which is attached directly to the pendulum axle while the other is held at some fixed angle, this angle being analogous to the gate voltage, $`n_x`$, of (6). The inverted pendulum analogy is at best suggestive, and our effect is weaker - we only find a flattening of the maxima of the periodic part of the dot energy.

Direct experimental observation of the intermediate phase with integer-half-integer sequences of plateaus might encounter several difficulties. The fluctuations around the half-integer dot population are large and likely a model-independent effect. Moreover in the regime of parameters, $`b1`$ and $`g1`$, the range of existence of the intermediate phase is extremely narrow.

If the plateaus were to be observed, the corresponding experimental signal of entering this phase from the continuum phase would be a divergence of the gate-reservoir capacitance (proportional to $`dn/dn_x`$) at the lower critical value of the amplitude of the periodic potential, $`v_{c1}`$, at two values of the gate voltage placed symmetrically about $`n_x=1/2`$ (for $`g=1`$ these are $`n_x0.3771`$ and $`n_x0.6229`$). Inside the intermediate phase these two peaks would move towards each other (and $`n_x=1/2`$) as the dot is made more isolated, eventually coalescing as $`v`$ approaches $`v_{c2}`$. An alternative way of observing the existence of the half-integer (and also integer) plateaus is through detecting the associated hysteresis phenomena which must accompany the first-order population jumps. We believe that the observation of hysteresis phenomena is a good gauge to distinguish between the predicted continuous and discontinuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependencies.

We believe, additionally, that these plateaus should be accessible numerically. Monte Carlo simulations of actions related to that found in (1) have already been successively accomplished. Specifically setting $`b=0`$ in (6) gives us an action appropriate to describing tunneling between quantum Hall edges. Monte Carlo simulations of this action were done in  which later were shown to match exact scaling curves . Moreover very accurate Monte Carlo simulation of the classical one-dimensional Ising model with interactions decaying as inverse-square of distance was recently completed , and the results were found to be in very good agreement with theoretical predictions . We are thus currently examining numerically the possibility of observing the half-integer plateaus .

Having outlined the prospects of observing the intermediate phase, we may note that in the context of adsorption phenomena the existence of a regime with stable fractional film thickness centered about half-layer position is experimentally well-established . In fact, the effects observed are even more puzzling - in a range of parameters variations in the external pressure lead to film thickness jumps only between half-integer layer coverages. The regime analogous to our finding - integer-half-integer adsorption curve was discussed theoretically , but not yet seen experimentally.

We would also like to mention a recent Little-Parks type experiment on small disordered $`AuZn`$ cylindrical films where a resistance oscillation with a period of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0/2`$, half of the flux quantum, was observed . The new resistance minima develop below certain temperatures and coexist with the standard Little-Parks minima corresponding to the integer number of flux quanta. This closely resembles our prediction for the intermediate phase translated into the superconductivity language.

The persistence of the half-integer minimum in the population dependence of the ground-state energy at the charge degeneracy points is the ultimate reason why the physics of the Kondo/Ising systems is different from that of the tricritical systems. The presence of an extra minimum in the latter case makes it more difficult for the electrons to enter the dot, thus enhancing the effects of Coulomb blockade.

Putting aside the existence of the intermediate phase, in the $`g<1`$ regime there is nonetheless a qualitative correspondence between the results of Sections III and IV - for fixed $`g`$ and sufficiently small $`v`$ (sufficiently large bare tunneling amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$) the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is continuous while above a critical $`v`$ (below critical $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$) the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is discontinuous - it is a modified staircase with plateaus centered around integer dot population. The correspondence can be made more quantitative by comparing the dot population jump between two neighboring integer plateaus numerically evaluated at the upper critical curve $`v_{c2}`$ from (11) - (14) with the universal prediction $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=g^{1/2}`$ for the two-state system (i.e. a ferromagnetic Ising model with interactions decaying as inverse square of distance). We found that whenever the width of the intermediate phase is small, i.e. for (i) $`0<g<1`$ and $`b0`$ or (ii) $`g0`$ and arbitrary $`b`$, the population jump computed from (11) - (14) is well approximated by $`g^{1/2}`$. For $`g0`$, a little algebra shows that $`\mathrm{\Delta }ng^{1/2}`$ is a consequence of Eqs. (13) and (14), and the prefactor can be established numerically. We find that $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=1.01991g^{1/2}`$ as $`g0`$ which is very close to the theoretical expectation $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=g^{1/2}`$.

For the experimentally most significant case when the electrons in the reservoirs are noninteracting, $`g=1`$, the discrepancy between the systems of the Kondo/Ising and the tricritical subclasses is largest. In the former case a continuous $`n(n_x)`$ dependence is predicted for arbitrarily small bare tunneling amplitude, while in the latter case, a continuous, intermediate staircase, and modified integer staircase are predicted, as in Fig.2, as the tunneling amplitude decreases ($`v`$ increases). This difference between the two types of behavior is unsurprising as the treatment of Section III for the case $`g=1`$ was already extremely delicate - the slightest change in the physics such as a stronger suppression of the number fluctuations on the dot might change the outcome qualitatively. Experimental or numerical observation for $`g=1`$ of the modified Coulomb staircase with first-order jumps between integer population plateaus will provide indirect evidence for the intermediate phase – they either exist together (tricritical type) or do not exist at all (Kondo/Ising type). It would be also interesting to verify the universality of the $`n(n_x)`$ dependence (18) by varying the size and shape of large dots.

Beyond the existence of the half-integer plateaus, an important issue arises in relating the smearing of the Coulomb staircase found in  with our results. One possible answer is that the effective action implicit in  belongs to what we call the Kondo/Ising subclass (specifically a Kondo Hamiltonian with the coupling $`J_z`$ set to 0) while our variational finding of a staircase occurs solely for actions falling in the tricritical subclass. In Section III we demonstrated that after the dot problem is truncated to a two-state system, any model with an effective free-fermion reservoir will predict a smeared Coulomb staircase. Because in the classical limit of a closed dot the free-fermion case is marginal, it is also important to critically reexamine the validity of the two-state approximation. Let us assume that the gate voltage is tuned at a charge degeneracy point, and that the full bare potential (2) has metastable minima ignored in the two-state approximation. Because these extra minima can now be populated with small finite probability, the full potential (2) suppresses electron number fluctuations on the dot somewhat stronger than its two-state truncation discussed in Section III . Whether this suppression is strong enough to restore a true staircase, remains an open problem.

We have also conducted a study of the spinful problem akin to the variational analysis of Section IV. The results will be presented elsewhere. Similar to the spinless case, the spin-1/2 Coulomb blockade problem is dual to that of a two-junction SQUID . Although this problem is more involved, for the case when the electrons are noninteracting, the model is a natural generalization of (6). We find that for sufficiently small transparency of the constriction there are two staircase phases in close correspondence with the spinless case. Experimentally  for spinful electrons, the dot population was found to change continuously with the gate voltage for a nearly open contact while developing smeared step-like structures with the contact nearly closed. The shape of the smeared step for the almost closed dot was found to be consistent with a finite temperature generalization of the perturbation theory done in . However the temperature of the dot was far above the Kondo temperature found in , the scale governing the putative smearing of the steps at zero temperature. Whether the steps remain smeared at $`T=0`$ is thus an unanswered experimental question.

We hope that experimental attempts will be made in the near future to test our predictions.

## VI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank B. S. Deaver, P. Fendley, M. Fowler, M. A. Moore, and T. J. Newman for valuable discussions. R.K. acknowledges helpful conversations with Shivaji Sondhi, Matthew Fisher, Vadim Oganesyan, and Karyn Le Hur.

E.B.K. and X.Q. would like to thank both the Thomas F. Jeffress and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust, and the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Science, U. S. Department of Energy. R. K. thanks the support of the NSF through grant DMR-9802813.


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# The Origin of Hot Subluminous Horizontal-Branch Stars in 𝜔 Centauri and NGC 2808

## 1. Introduction

Extreme horizontal-branch (EHB) stars occupy the hot end of the horizontal branch (HB) in globular clusters with extended blue HB tails. The envelope masses of these stars are too small ($`<`$ $``$0.02 $`M_{}`$) to sustain hydrogen-shell burning, and thus nearly all of their luminosity comes from helium burning in the core. Recent observations have discovered an unexpected population of hot stars lying below the canonical EHB in the UV color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of $`\omega `$ Cen (D’Cruz et al. 2000 and references therein). In the present paper we will use new UV observations of the globular cluster NGC 2808 to explore the origin of these subluminous EHB stars and will suggest that these stars may be the progeny of stars which underwent extensive mixing during a delayed helium flash on the white-dwarf (WD) cooling curve (Brown et al. 2001).

Our data for NGC 2808 were obtained in the far-UV (FUV, $`\lambda 1600`$ Å) and near-UV (NUV, $`\lambda 2700`$ Å) bandpasses of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). The HB of NGC 2808 is bimodal with a large gap between the blue HB (BHB) and red HB (RHB) stars. In addition, NGC 2808 has a very long blue HB tail that is punctuated by two gaps: one between the EHB and BHB and one within the EHB itself (Sosin et al. 1997; Walker 1999; Bedin et al. 2000). Our STIS CMD (Figure 1) shows the following features:

* The gap between the EHB and BHB at $`m_{FUV}m_{NUV}1`$ mag is well detected, as is the gap between the BHB and RHB at $`m_{FUV}m_{NUV}>0`$ mag. The gap within the EHB seen in optical CMDs is not present.
* There is a large population of hot subluminous HB stars, previously known to exist only in $`\omega `$ Cen (D’Cruz et al. 2000). Out of a total of 75 EHB stars, 46 are fainter than the canonical zero-age horizontal branch (ZAHB).
* 5 luminous post-EHB stars are found at $`m_{FUV}<15.5`$ mag.

## 2. Canonical Evolution through the Helium Flash

To study the origin of the hot subluminous EHB stars, we computed a set of evolutionary sequences which followed the evolution of a low-mass star continuously from the main sequence through the helium flash to the ZAHB. All sequences had the same heavy-element abundance Z of 0.0015, corresponding to \[Fe/H\] = $``$1.31 for \[$`\alpha `$/Fe\] = 0.3, and an initial main-sequence mass $`M`$ of $`0.862M_{}`$, corresponding to an age of 13 Gyr at the tip of the RGB. The sequences only differed in the extent of mass loss along the RGB which we specified by varying the mass-loss parameter $`\eta _R`$ in the Reimers formulation from 0 to 1. Our purpose was to determine if mixing between the helium core and hydrogen envelope might occur during the helium flash, as found previously by Sweigart (1997).

A representative sample of our evolutionary tracks is shown in Figure 2. For $`0.0\eta _R<0.740`$ the helium flash occurs at the tip of the RGB. As the mass loss increases, however, the models peel off the RGB and evolve to high effective temperatures before igniting helium (so-called “hot He-flashers”; Castellani & Castellani 1993; D’Cruz et al. 1996). For $`0.740\eta _R0.817`$ the helium flash occurs between the tip of the RGB and the top of the WD cooling curve.

In all sequences with $`\eta _R0.817`$ the flash convection zone produced by the high helium-burning luminosity (peak $`L_{He}10^{10}L_{}`$) failed to reach the hydrogen envelope by $``$1 pressure-scale height. Thus mixing between the helium core and the hydrogen envelope does not occur if a star ignites helium either on the RGB or during the evolution to the top of the WD cooling curve. In these cases we confirm the canonical assumption that the helium flash does not affect either the envelope mass or composition.

## 3. Flash Mixing on the White-Dwarf Cooling Curve

The canonical evolution described above changes dramatically when the helium flash occurs further down the WD cooling curve (Figure 2). As a star descends the cooling curve, the entropy barrier of its hydrogen shell decreases (Iben 1976). As a result, the flash convection is then able to penetrate deeply into the hydrogen envelope (Sweigart 1997; Brown et al. 2001). The protons captured by the flash convection will be mixed into the helium-burning core while helium and carbon from the core will be mixed outward into the envelope. The calculations of Sweigart (1997) indicate that this “flash mixing” will consume most, if not all, of the envelope hydrogen while simultaneously enriching the envelope in helium and carbon. All of our sequences with $`0.818\eta _R0.936`$ encountered flash mixing. These sequences were stopped at the onset of mixing due to the numerical difficulty of following the proton mixing and nucleosynthesis. Sequences with $`\eta _R0.937`$ did not ignite helium and thus died as helium white dwarfs.

Flash mixing is a consequence of the basic properties of the stellar models and hence should occur whenever a star ignites helium on the WD cooling curve. Analogous mixing occurs during a very late helium-shell flash according to the “born-again” scenario for producing hydrogen-deficient stars (Iben 1995 and references therein).

EHB evolutionary tracks for both canonical ($`\eta _R0.817`$) and flash-mixed ($`0.818\eta _R0.936`$) sequences are plotted in Figure 3. The canonical (i.e., unmixed) models have the same H-rich envelope composition as the pre-helium flash models. The ZAHB models for the flash-mixed tracks were obtained by changing the envelope composition to mimic the effects of flash mixing. We considered both He + C-rich and He-rich envelope compositions for these flash-mixed models (see caption of Figure 3). For comparison the bottom panel of Figure 3 shows a set of tracks with $`0.818\eta _R0.936`$ which have the same H-rich envelope composition as the canonical models.

Several features of Figure 3 deserve comment. First, there is a well-defined high temperature limit to the canonical EHB at an effective temperature $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ of $``$31,500 K for the present metallicity. Within the canonical framework it is not possible to produce hotter EHB stars regardless of the extent of mass loss along the RGB. Second, the flash-mixed tracks are separated by a gap of $``$6000 K in $`\mathrm{T}_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ from the hot end of the canonical EHB. As a consequence, flash mixing leads to a sharp dichotomy in the properties of the EHB stars. The change from canonical to flash-mixed evolution occurs over an interval of only 0.001 in $`\eta _R`$, corresponding to a mass-loss difference of only 10$`{}_{}{}^{4}M_{}^{}`$.

## 4. Nature of the Subluminous EHB Stars

In order to compare our EHB models with the STIS data, we computed new stellar atmospheres for both H-rich and H-depleted compositions. The spectral energy distribution for a canonical EHB star is compared to the spectra for 2 flash-mixed stars with He \+ C-rich and He-rich atmospheres in Figure 4. The enhanced helium abundance in the flash-mixed stars reduces the hydrogen opacity below 912 Å so that more of the flux is radiated in the extreme UV at the expense of the flux at longer wavelengths. Enhancing the carbon abundance along with helium restores some of this extreme UV opacity, but the resulting spectrum is still redder and fainter in the far-UV than a normal spectrum.

Using these He + C-rich and He-rich stellar atmospheres, we translated the ZAHB models from the flash-mixed sequences to the STIS CMD (see Figure 5). The flash-mixed models show the same dramatic drop in the far-UV luminosity as the STIS data. This drop can be attributed to 1) the lower far-UV flux in the spectral energy distribution of the flash-mixed models (see Figure 4) and 2) the larger bolometric correction due to their higher temperatures (see Figure 3). Evolution off the ZAHB will fill in the region between these flash-mixed models in Figure 5 and the canonical ZAHB. Radiative levitation of Fe would shift the flash-mixed models redward, possibly explaining the color spread of the subluminous stars. In contrast, the $`\eta _R`$ = 0.860 ZAHB model with a normal H-rich envelope in Figure 5 lies just $``$0.1 mag fainter than the hot end of the canonical EHB, a consequence of its slightly smaller core mass ($`\mathrm{\Delta }M_c0.004M_{}`$). It is clear therefore that hot He flashers which ignore flash mixing cannot explain the subluminous stars in either $`\omega `$ Cen or NGC 2808.

Optical CMDs also show a gap within the EHB of NGC 2808. We have plotted our ZAHB models in the ($`BV`$, $`V`$) CMD to see if the temperature difference between the flash-mixed and canonical tracks in Figure 3 might produce such a gap. As expected, the flash-mixed models are separated by a gap of $``$0.5 mag in V from the hot end of the canonical EHB. Our simulations, which include evolution off the ZAHB, predict an EHB gap close to that observed in NGC 2808 (see Brown et al. 2001). A similar EHB gap is not seen in $`\omega `$ Cen, possibly because it has been obscured by the metallicity spread of the cluster.

## 5. Conclusions

* Stars which ignite helium on the white-dwarf cooling curve will undergo substantial mixing between the helium core and hydrogen envelope during the helium flash. This flash-induced mixing will greatly enhance the envelope helium and carbon abundances.
* Flash-mixed EHB stars will appear subluminous in UV color-magnitude diagrams due to their redistributed far-UV flux and larger bolometric corrections, in agreement with the subluminous stars in $`\omega `$ Cen and NGC 2808.
* Flash mixing leads to a dichotomy in the properties of EHB stars. The temperature gap between the flash-mixed and canonical (i.e., unmixed) stars may explain the EHB gap found in optical CMDs of NGC 2808.
* Flash mixing on the white-dwarf cooling curve may provide a new evolutionary channel for producing H-deficient stars, particularly the high gravity, He-rich sdO stars (Lemke et al. 1997) and the minority of sdB stars that are He-rich (Moehler, Heber, & Durrell 1997).

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text:
# Low-temperature electrical transport in bilayer manganite La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7

## I Introduction

There is growing interest in the low-temperature electrical transport phenomena of perovskite manganites in order to elucidate the microscopic origin of the colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) effect.schi ; jaim ; okud ; okud2 ; zhao1 ; zhao2  Recent studies on single crystals of the three-dimensional 3D pseudocubic compounds R1-xAxMnO3 ($`R`$ is a trivalent rare-earth ion and $`A`$ is a divalent alkaline-earth ion) show a $`T^2`$ dependence of the resistivity,jaim ; okud ; okud2  which has been interpreted as either electron-electron okud ; okud2  or one-magnon jaim  scattering. However, low-temperature resistivity measurements of epitaxial thin films of La1-xCaxMnO3 provide support for the presence of small-polaron conduction in the ferromagnetic (FM) state.zhao1 ; zhao2  In the same system, a $`T^{9/2}`$ term attributed to electron-magnon scattering was also found in the $`T`$ dependence of resistivity at low-temperatures.schi ; zhao2  Therefore, the low-temperature electrical transport mechanism of manganites remains controversial and is far from being fully understood.

The bilayer manganite La2-2xSr1+2xMn2O7 has proven to be a fruitful system for understanding the CMR and has become the focus of many recent investigations.mori ; kimu  This is an ideal system for the study of the low-temperature conduction mechanism. Its reduced dimensionality gives rise to anisotropic characteristics of charge transport and magnetic properties and also enhances the CMR effect near the magnetic transition temperature, although at the cost of reducing it to about 100 K.mori  The magnetic structure of heavily doped bilayer compounds always shows the coexistence of FM and antiferromagnetic (AFM) correlations.perr ; hiro ; kubo1 ; osbo  The magnetic correlations are predominantly FM within the two-dimensional MnO2 layers, while the magnetic coupling between the MnO2 layers changes from FM for $`x`$ 0.4 to canted AFM for $`x>`$ 0.4. The interplay between FM double exchange and AFM superexchange interactions between Mn ions in these compounds becomes more subtle and is expected to be responsible for the unusual transport properties observed in the bilayer manganites. For examples, (i) an up-turn in the resistivity at low temperatures is generally observed for the $`x=`$ 0.30,qing2  0.35,okuda  0.38,qing2  and 0.4mori ; qing1 ; chun  samples; (ii) despite the anisotropic crystal structure,mitc  $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$ of the $`x=`$ 0.38 compound display virtually identical temperature dependences at low-temperatures, indicating the same conduction mechanism in both $`ab`$ and $`c`$ directions.qing2

A lot of effort has been devoted to understanding the low-temperature electrical transport properties of bilayer manganites. Okuda, Kimura, and Tokura okuda  found that the in-plane conductivity $`\sigma _{ab}`$ of $`x=`$ 0.35 single crystals is almost proportional to $`T^{1/2}`$ for $`T<`$ 4 K, indicating weak localization. This square-root temperature dependence of $`\sigma _{ab}`$ was also observed in the $`x=`$ 0.40 samples.chun  Recently, Abrikosov, based on the theory of quantum interference, has shown that $`\sigma _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\sigma _c(T)`$ should be isotropic and proportional to $`\tau _\phi ^{1/2}`$ (the phase coherence destruction probability $`\tau _\phi ^1T`$ for the 3D conduction) in the 3D (low-temperature) regime.abri  It is, therefore, desirable from the experimental point of view to determine $`\sigma _c(T)`$ of bilayer manganites and, hence, to establish which scattering mechanism is mainly responsible for the low-temperature transport properties of this system. An important question is also whether there is any common conduction mechanism responsible for the low-temperature electrical transport in both the infinite-layer and bilayer manganites.

In this paper, we address the above issues through resistivity measurements on La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 single crystals, performed at low temperatures and in magnetic fields applied parallel to the $`ab`$ plane. The anisotropic resistivities $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ are proportional to $`T^{9/2}`$ in the intermediate temperature regime below $`T_c`$. This points toward a two-magnon scattering mechanism responsible for the electrical dissipation in this $`T`$ range. The validity of this scattering mechanism is further supported by the $`H`$ dependence of the proportionality coefficients $`B_{ab,c}^{fit}`$ obtained by fitting the data and by the fact that the value of $`B_{ab}^{fit}`$ and the ratio of the exchange interaction $`J_{ab}/J_c`$ obtained by fitting the data are in excellent agreement with the calculated $`B_{ab}`$ based on the two-magnon model and $`J_{ab}/J_c`$ deduced from neutron scattering, respectively. At lower temperatures, in the non-metallic regime ($`\rho /T<0`$), both anisotropic conductivities $`\sigma _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\sigma _c(T)`$ exhibit a $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence, a result of electron-electron correlations, which is consistent with the weak localization effect in a 3D disordered metal. The common mechanisms responsible for both the in-plane and out-of-plane electrical transport indicate the 3D metallic nature of the bilayer manganite La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 at $`T<T_c`$.

## II Experimental Details

Single crystals of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 were grown from sintered rods of the same nominal composition by the floating zone method using a mirror furnace, as described in detail elsewhere.moreno  Plate-shaped crystals were separated mechanically from the bar. X-ray diffraction confirmed that the surfaces of the plates are parallel to the crystallographic $`ab`$ plane. The crystal chosen for systematic transport measurements had mirror surfaces on both faces. We determined $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$ as functions of temperature $`T`$ ($`1.9T400`$ K) and magnetic field $`H`$ ($`0H14`$ T) by performing multi-terminal transport measurements using the electrical contact configuration of the flux transformer, as described previously.levin1 ; levin2  The magnetic field $`H`$ was applied parallel to the MnO2 layers ($`Hab`$ plane).

## III Results and Discussion

The $`T`$ dependence of the magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$ measured in a low $`H`$ ($`H=10`$ Oe) is shown in the inset to Fig. 1(b). The sample exhibits a paramagnetic (PM) - FM transition at the Curie transition temperature $`T_c=`$ 125 K, which is consistent with previous reports.mori ; mitc  At $`T<`$ 50 K, the susceptibility slightly decreases with decreasing $`T`$, in good agreement with recent reports.chun ; mitc  As typically seen in other studies,mori ; mitc ; pott  an additional transition appears around 290 K, most likely due to trace amounts of impurities oser  (intergrowth) that, however, represent only about 0.1 % of the volume fraction of the sample.pott

Figures 1(a) and 1(b) show the temperature profiles of $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$, and of the anisotropy $`\rho _c/\rho _{ab}`$, respectively, measured in zero magnetic field. The metal-insulator transition takes place at $`T_{MI}=`$ 130 K for both situations: current parallel ($`\rho _{ab}`$) and perpendicular ($`\rho _c`$) to the MnO2 layers. The anisotropy $`\rho _c/\rho _{ab}`$ increases with decreasing $`T`$, reaches its maximum value of 165 at $`T_{MI}`$, decreases abruptly just below $`T_c`$, and depends weakly on $`T`$ for $`T<T_c`$ with an average value of $``$90, comparable to other measurements.mori ; qing1  We note that the values of both $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$ are, over the whole measured $`T`$ range, appreciably smaller than those reported previously,mori  attesting to the high quality of our single crystal.

The $`H`$ and $`T`$ dependences of $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$ are shown in Figs. 2(a) and 2(b), respectively, for the temperature range from 2 to 120 K. The characteristic negative magnetoresistivity in both $`\rho _{ab}`$ and $`\rho _c`$ is clearly seen over the whole $`T`$ range. At the same time, $`\rho _c/\rho _{ab}`$ has a weaker $`H`$ dependence \[see inset to Fig. 2(b)\]. An interesting feature of $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ is the appearance of a weak non-metallic behavior for $`T<`$ 50 K in zero field, which shifts to higher temperatures with increasing magnetic field.

In the infinite-layer La1-xSrxMnO3 (0.10 $`x`$ 0.17) samples, a similar low-temperature up-turn in resistivity has been identified with the vestiges of the structural $`O^{}`$ to $`O^{}`$ transition in the FM phase.dabr  Temperature-dependent neutron diffraction studies on La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 do not show any structural transition occurring at low-temperatures. mitc  The up-turn in the resistivity of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 at low temperatures is accompanied by a decrease of the $`ac`$ susceptibility, which is related to the reentrant spin glass phase,chun  an indication of a crossover from a FM to a canted state.genn  The canted structure at low temperatures comes from the competing interactions along the $`c`$-axis Mn-O-Mn bonds, $`i.e.,`$ the AFM superexchange interaction between half-filled $`t_{2g}`$ orbitals and the FM double-exchange interaction via $`e_g`$ conduction electrons.genn

In ordinary FM metals, the contribution to resistance from the $`s`$-$`d`$ interaction is known to be proportional to $`T^2`$ at low temperatures.kasu ; good  This $`T^2`$ dependence of resistivity has been generally observed in single crystals of La1-xSrxMnO3 (x $`>`$ 0.18),okud  La1-xCaxMnO3 (x $``$ 0.22),okud2  and La0.67(Pb,Ca)0.33MnO3,jaim  and has been attributed to either electron-electron okud ; okud2  or one-magnon jaim  scattering. However, our low-temperature resistivities data (50 K $`T`$ 110 K) of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 single crystals measured in various applied magnetic fields do not follow a $`T^2`$ dependence of the form $`\rho (T)=\rho _0+AT^2`$. Therefore, the electron-electron scattering mechanism does not contribute to $`\rho _{ab,c}(T)`$. This indicates that the conduction mechanism in this bilayer manganite is different from that in the infinite-layer compounds. In fact, specific heat measurements on bilayer manganites okuda  show that their reduced dimensionality, compared to infinite-layer manganites, enhances the magnetic specific heat, but does not affect the electronic specific heat coefficient $`\gamma `$, indicating the presence of an anomalous carrier scattering process such as electron-phonon, electron-magnon, or a combination of them.

Polaronic transport has been recently shown to be a possible conduction mechanism in R1-xAxMnO3 at $`T<T_c`$.zhao1 ; zhao2 ; alex  Zhao $`et`$ $`al.`$zhao1 ; zhao2  reported that the resistivity below 100 K in epitaxial thin films of La1-xCaxMnO3 ($`x=`$ 0.25 and 0.4) grown on (100) LaAlO3 substrates can be well fitted with $`\rho =\rho _0+E\omega _s/\mathrm{sinh}^2(\mathrm{}\omega _s/2k_BT)`$ ($`\omega _s`$ is the frequency of a soft optical mode), providing evidence for small-polaron metallic conduction in the FM state. We found that our resistivity data of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 can not be adequately fitted with this expression. Presently, there is no experimental evidence for the presence of small polarons in the FM state of bilayer manganites. In fact, recent Raman scattering data on La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 single crystals suggest the formation of small polarons only at $`T>T_c`$.rome  Moreover, X-ray and neutron scattering measurements dolo  on La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 directly demonstrate that the polarons disappear abruptly at the FM transition because of the sudden charge delocalization. On the other hand, the giant magnetothermal conductivity mats  observed in La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 indicates that spin-fluctuation scattering or magnon contribution is dominant over other carrier scattering processes.

Kubo and Ohata kubo  calculated the low-temperature resistance produced by scattering of holes by spin waves, on the basis of an effective Hamiltonian for double exchange in the spin wave approximation. They have found that the contribution from the two-magnon scattering process is proportional to $`T^{9/2}`$ and that the proportionality coefficient has, in the case of a simple parabolic band, the analytical expression given by

$$B=\frac{3\mathrm{}R^6k_F^5}{32\pi e^2S^2}(\frac{m}{M})^{9/2}(\frac{k_B}{E_F})^{9/2}(2.52+0.0017\frac{M}{m}).$$
(1)
Here $`R`$ is the hopping distance of the $`e_g`$ electrons in the in-plane or out-of-plane direction, $`S`$ is the effective spin of a Mn ion, the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ is measured from the band center, and $`M`$ and $`m`$ are the effective masses of a hole and a spin wave, respectively. In terms of the hole concentration per unit cell $`n`$, the effective hopping integral $`t^{}`$, and the average spin stiffness $`D^{}`$, the coefficient $`B`$ can be rewritten as zhao2

$$B=\frac{R\mathrm{}}{48^2\pi ^7e^2S^2}\frac{(6\pi ^2n)^{5/3}}{(0.5^{2/3}n^{2/3})^{9/2}}(\frac{R^2k_B}{D^{}})^{9/2}(2.52+0.0017\frac{D^{}}{R^2t^{}}).$$
(2)
Here the following simple relationships had been used: $`Rk_F=(6\pi ^2n)^{1/3}`$, $`M/m=D^{}/(R^2t^{})`$, and $`E_F=t^{}(6\pi ^2)^{2/3}(0.5^{2/3}n^{2/3})`$.

To reveal the two-magnon scattering nature of the resistivity in La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7, we plot in Figs. 3(a) and 3(b) the measured $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$, respectively, along with the fits of these data with $`\rho (T)=\rho _0+BT^{9/2}`$. Both $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ follow remarkably well a $`T^{9/2}`$ dependence (solid lines in the figures) in the $`T`$ range of 50 to 110 K for different applied magnetic fields. The fitting parameters for $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ measured in zero $`H`$ are $`B_{ab}^{fit}=4.04\times 10^{13}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm/K9/2 and $`B_c^{fit}=2.83\times 10^{11}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm/K9/2, respectively.

We determine next the zero-field value of $`B_{ab}`$ from Eq. (2) and compare it with the value of the corresponding fitting parameter. In La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7, the hole concentration $`nx=`$ 0.40, the in-plane hopping distance is the Mn-Mn distance $`R_{ab}=3.87\AA `$,mitc  the magnitude of the effective spin is $`S=1.8`$,chat  the effective stiffness constant $`D_{ab}^{}=`$ 151 meV $`\AA ^2`$ based on recent neutron scattering measurements,hf  and $`t^{}=`$ 40 meV as estimated from the measured effective plasma frequency.zhao2  With these values for different physical quantities, Eq. (2) gives $`B_{ab}=1.01\times 10^{13}`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm/K9/2. This value of $`B_{ab}`$ has the same order of magnitude as the fitting parameter $`B_{ab}^{fit}`$, showing that the two-magnon scattering can account for the $`T`$ dependence of resistivity of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 in the metallic range of temperatures.

In a conventional Heisenberg system, the spin-wave stiffness $`D`$ scales with the strength of the magnetic exchange coupling $`J`$ and can be expressed as $`D=JSR^2`$.khal  Since $`0.0017D^{}/R^2t^{}2.52`$, one can ignore this term from Eq. (2). Hence, one obtains the following expression for the ratio of the in-plane $`J_{ab}`$ and interlayer $`J_c`$ exchange interactions:

$$\frac{J_{ab}}{J_c}=(\frac{B_c}{B_{ab}}\frac{R_{ab}}{R_c})^{2/9}.$$
(3)
With the values of $`B_{ab}`$ and $`B_c`$ obtained from the fitting, the hopping distance $`R_{ab}`$ given above, and the out-of-plane hopping distance as the Mn-Mn distance between the MnO2 layers $`R_c=3.88`$ $`\AA `$,mitc  the above equation gives $`J_{ab}/J_c=`$ 2.6. This value is in excellent agreement with the value of 2.8 determined from inelastic neutron scattering measurements on La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7.chat2  This result further indicates that the two-magnon scattering plays a dominant role in both $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ for 50 $`T`$ 110 K.

The field dependences of $`B_{ab}^{fit}`$ and $`B_c^{fit}`$ of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 for 50 $`T`$ 110 K are shown in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b), respectively. Both $`B_{ab}^{fit}`$ and $`B_c^{fit}`$ are $`H`$ dependent, implying a strong sensitivity of the two-magnon scattering to external fields, and saturate at high fields. The decrease of $`B_{ab}^{fit}`$ and $`B_c^{fit}`$ with increasing $`H`$ is the source of the small negative magnetoresistance for 50 $`T`$ 110 K. Their $`H`$ dependence is also consistent with the spin wave scattering mechanism. Indeed, the spin-wave scattering itself should decrease with increasing $`H`$. The effect of an applied field is to open an energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }=g\mu (H+4\pi M_s)`$ in the magnon spectrum. This can be argued simply on the basis of a reduction in the spin-wave density by the applied field due to an increase in the energy gap appearing in the dispersion relation for the magnon energy, $`\epsilon _p=Dq^2+\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`q`$ is the magnon-wave vector.

Figures 5(a) and 5(b) are plots of $`\sigma _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\sigma _c(T)`$, respectively, of La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 in the low-$`T`$ range, down to 1.9 K, measured in $`H=`$ 0 and 14 T. Both $`\sigma _{ab}`$ and $`\sigma _c`$ follow a $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence below a certain $`T`$, which increases with increasing $`H`$. This is the first report of a $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence of $`\sigma _c`$ of a bilayer manganite. The $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence of $`\sigma _{ab}`$ is in agreement with previous reports both in La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 chun  and in La1.3Sr1.7Mn2O7 for 30 mK $`T`$ 2 K.okuda  It has been suggested okuda  that the observed $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence of $`\sigma _{ab}`$ is consistent with weak localization effects in ordered 3D metals,lee ; alts  where the density of states at the Fermi level has a $`T^{1/2}`$ singularity due to the influence of interference of the inelastic electron-electron interaction and the elastic impurity scattering of the electrons.alts  In the present case, the electrons are diffusive instead of freely propagating, leading to a profound modification of the traditional view based on the Fermi-liquid theory of metals. Considering the strong anisotropy of the crystal structure and of the conductivity, the bilayer manganites appear to be more 2D like. However, $`\sigma _c(T)`$ clearly follows the same $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence at low temperatures, consistent with 3D weak localization effects in disordered metals. This $`T^{1/2}`$ behavior in both $`\sigma _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\sigma _c(T)`$ confirms the 3D nature of the metallic state and is in good agreement with the theory of quantum interference in highly anisotropic layered metals developed by Abrikosov.abri

## IV Conclusion

We performed simultaneous in-plane and out-of-plane resistivity measurements on bilayer manganite La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 single crystal in magnetic fields applied parallel to the $`ab`$-plane. Both $`\rho _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\rho _c(T)`$ display a $`T^{9/2}`$ dependence for 50 $`T`$ 110 K. This $`T`$ dependence and the magnitude of the fitting parameter are consistent with two-magnon scattering mechanism. The excellent agreement between the ratio of the exchange interactions $`J_{ab}/J_c`$ obtained by fitting the data and that deduced from neutron scattering provides further support for the validity of this scattering mechanism. Below 50 K, both $`\sigma _{ab}(T)`$ and $`\sigma _c(T)`$ follow a $`T^{1/2}`$ dependence, which is consistent with the theory of quantum interference or weak-localization effects in 3D disordered metals. The same temperature dependence for both conductivities strongly indicates that the bilayer La1.2Sr1.8Mn2O7 has a 3D metallic nature at $`T<T_c`$.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research was supported at KSU by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-0102415. Work at LANL was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Energy.