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# One- and many-body effects on mirages in quantum corrals

## I Introduction

In recent years, the advances in scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) made possible the manipulation of single atoms on top of a surface and the construction of quantum structures of arbitrary shape eig . In particular, quantum corrals have been assembled by depositing a close line of atoms or molecules on Cu or noble metal (111) surfaces cro ; hel ; man ; man2 . These surfaces have the property that for small wave vectors parallel to the surface a parabolic band of two-dimensional (2D) surface states uncoupled to bulk states exists hub . A circular corral of radius $`71.3`$ Å was constructed depositing 48 Fe atoms on a Cu(111) surface cro . The measured differential conductance $`dI/dV`$ could be fitted by a combination of the density of eigenstates close to the Fermi energy $`ϵ_F`$, of a 2D electron gas inside a hard wall circular corral cro . On another experiment, a Co atom acting as a magnetic impurity was placed at one focus of an elliptical quantum corral, and the corresponding Kondo feature in $`dI/dV`$ was observed not only at that position, but also with reduced intensity at the other focus man . This mirage can be understood as the result of quantum interference in the way in which the Kondo effect is transmitted from one focus to the other by the different conduction eigenstates of a hard-wall ellipse rap . Among these eigenstates, the density of the one closest to $`ϵ_F`$ is clearly displayed in the change of differential conductance $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ after adding the impurity man . More recently, the extrema in the degenerate $`37^{th}`$ and $`38^{th}`$ conduction eigenstates of a hard wall circular corral have inspired an experiment with two impurities inside the corral man2 .

The theories of the mirage experiment can be classified into those which start from eigenstates of a confined 2D electron gas rap ; por ; wei ; hal ; ali2 ; wil  and those in which the confining atoms are modeled by a phenomenological scattering approach aga ; fie . The latter have the disadvantage that many-body effects are very hard to include. In addition, some features which are clear from the hard wall eigenstates, like mirages out of the foci man2 ; rap ; por ; wei , are somewhat hidden in the scattering approaches. On the other hand, while the eigenstates inside a hard wall corral are perfectly defined, in the actual experiments the boundaries of the corrals are soft and the eigenstates become resonances with finite width $`\delta _i`$ cro . This width plays a crucial role in the line shape of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ and its magnitude at the mirage point rap ; ali2 . If $`\delta _i`$ is large the mirage disappears, while if $`\delta _i=0`$ and other parameters as in the experiment, there is no Kondo resonance at $`ϵ_F`$. Ordinary Lanczos calculations have $`\delta _i=0`$ hal  and are unable to describe the line shape of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$. This can be corrected using an embedding method wil . To the best of our knowledge, this theory and the perturbative one rap ; ali2  using a constant value for $`\delta _i=\delta `$ as a parameter, are the only many-body ones presented so far, which can explain the voltage dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$. Thus, a careful study of the broadening $`\delta _i`$ is necessary.

Another important parameter which is still not well known is $`\delta _b/\delta _s`$, where $`\delta _b`$ ($`\delta _s`$) is the part of the resonant level width of the impurity state, which is due to hybridization with bulk (surface) states. Some theories have assumed that $`\delta _b\delta _s`$, while others have taken $`\delta _b=0`$ rap ; por ; wei ; hal ; ali2 . Clearly, $`\delta _s0`$, because otherwise $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ would be independent of the 2D conduction eigenstates in contrast to the experiment man . Instead, the line shape for both, the elliptical corral and the clean surface can be explained taking $`\delta _s=0`$ and the same set of parameters ali2 . A recent experiment suggests that $`\delta _b>\delta _s`$ on the basis of the rapid decay in $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ as the STM tip is moved away from the impurity knorr . However, the 4s and 4p states of the impurity atom were not included in the analysis and they can affect the distance dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$. Recently, it has been suggested that experiments with two impurities inside a quantum corral can elucidate the magnitude of $`\delta _b/\delta _s`$ because the effect of interactions between impurities is expected to be proportional to $`\delta _s^2`$wil .

In this work we solve the impurity Anderson model which describes the mirage experiment using perturbation theory in the Coulomb repulsion $`U`$. The previous theory of one of us rap  is extended to include non-vanishing $`\delta _b`$ and a more realistic $`\delta _i`$. We calculate the widths of the conduction states $`\delta _i`$ for a circular corral. We obtain an integral expression for the conduction electron Green’s function $`G_s^0`$ in the absence of the impurity, and then we expand it as a discrete sum of contributions from simple poles, using ideas borrowed from nuclear physics cal  and scattering theory tay . This expansion takes a suitable form for the perturbative approach. We also discuss the space dependence of the compensation of the impurity spin. The calculation of $`G_s^0`$ is presented in section II. In section III we describe the model and the many-body approach. Section IV contains the results for $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ in circular and elliptical corrals with a magnetic impurity. In Section V, we calculate the correlation functions between the impurity spin and that of the conduction electrons as a function of position. Section VI is a discussion.

## II The clean circular corral

Starting from free electrons in 2D, we model the boundary of an empty circular corral (without magnetic impurities inside) by a continuous potential $`W\delta (rr_0)`$, where $`r`$ is the distance to the center of the circle and $`r_0`$ its radius. The approximation of a continuous boundary (instead of discrete adatoms forming the corral) simplifies considerably the mathematics and is justified by the fact that the Fermi wave length for surface electrons $`2\pi /k_F30`$ Å is larger than the average distance between adatoms $`10`$ Å. The angular momentum projection perpendicular to the surface $`l_z=m`$ becomes a good quantum number, due to the rotational symmetry around the center of the corral. For each $`m`$ and energy $`E=(\mathrm{}k)^2/(2m_e^{})`$, where $`m_e^{}`$ is the effective mass, the eigenstates can be written in the form $`\phi _{km}(r,\theta )=\psi _{km}(kr)e^{im\theta }`$ in polar coordinates, and the 2D radial Schrödinger equation becomes

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_e^{}}\frac{1}{r}\frac{}{r}\left(r\frac{\psi _{km}}{r}\right)+[\frac{(\mathrm{}m)^2}{2m_e^{}r^2}+W\delta (rr_0)E]\psi _{km}=0.$$
(1)
Its solution can be written in the form $`\psi _{km}=\psi _{km}^<\theta (r_0r)+\psi _{km}^>\theta (rr_0)`$, where $`\theta (r)`$ is the step function and (except for a normalization constant):

$`\psi _{k,m}^<`$ $`=`$ $`J_m(kr)`$
$`\psi _{k,m}^>`$ $`=`$ $`A_m(k)J_m(kr)+B_m(k)Y_m(kr),`$ (2)
where $`J_m(Y_m)`$ is the Bessel function of the first (second) kind. From the continuity of $`\psi _{km}`$ and the discontinuity in the first derivative according to Eq. (1), and using known expressions for the derivatives of the Bessel functions abra , one obtains:

$`A_m(k)`$ $`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \frac{2m_e^{}W/(\mathrm{}^2k)}{\frac{Y_{m+1}(kr_0)}{Y_m(kr_0)}\frac{J_{m+1}(kr_0)}{J_m(kr_0)}}},`$
$`B_m(k)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1A_m(k)\right){\displaystyle \frac{J_m(kr_0)}{Y_m(kr_0)}}.`$ (3)
We normalize the wave functions $`\phi _{km}(r,\theta )`$ inside a hard wall box of large radius $`R`$ and take the limit $`R+\mathrm{}`$. A quantity of interest in the many-body problem (see Eq. (15)) is the Green’s function for surface conduction electrons in the absence of the impurity:

$$G_s^0(z;r,\theta ,r^{},\theta ^{})=\underset{km}{}\frac{\phi _{km}(r,\theta )\overline{\phi }_{km}(r^{},\theta ^{})}{zϵ_{km}},$$
(4)
where the bar over $`\phi _{km}`$ denotes complex conjugation and the sum over $`k`$ extends over all radial wave vectors for which $`\phi _{km}(R,\theta )=0`$. Using Eqs. (2) and (3), and taking the limit $`R+\mathrm{}`$, we obtain after some algebra for $`r,r^{}<r_0`$

$$G_s^0(z;r,\theta ,r^{},\theta ^{})=\underset{m}{}\frac{dkkJ_m(kr)J_m(kr^{})e^{im(\theta \theta ^{})}}{2\pi \left(A_m^2(k)+B_m^2(k)\right)\left(z\frac{(\mathrm{}k)^2}{2m_e^{}}\right)}.$$
(5)
When $`W+\mathrm{}`$, it is easy to see that $`A_m,B_m\mathrm{}`$, except for those values of $`k`$ for which $`J_l(kr_0)=0`$, and one recovers the known result for the hard wall problem

$$G_s^0=\underset{n,m}{}\frac{J_m(\gamma _n^mr)J_m(\gamma _n^mr^{})e^{im(\theta \theta ^{})}}{\left(\sqrt{\pi }r_0J_{m+1}(\gamma _n^mr_0)\right)^2\left(z\frac{(\mathrm{}\gamma _n^m)^2}{2m_e^{}}\right)},$$
(6)
where $`\gamma _n^mr_0`$ is the $`n^{th}`$ zero of $`J_m(\alpha )`$. For finite $`W`$ one expects that the poles of Eq. (6) become resonances described by appropriate complex poles of the scattering matrix cal ; tay . Actually, the integral of Eq. (5) can be thought as an integral over energy $`E(k)=(\mathrm{}k)^2/(2m_e^{})`$ and for any $`z`$ in the upper half of the complex plane, the integrand is analytical in $`E`$, except at the zeros of $`A_m^2+B_m^2`$. The physical zeros of $`A_m^2+B_m^2`$ lie in the lower half plane of $`E`$. Then in principle one can evaluate the integral by the method of residues. A technical problem is that the Bessel functions diverge for infinite complex $`k`$ and one has to assume a high energy cut off. This however has no physical consequences. Thus, $`G_s^0`$ can be written in the form:

$$G_s^0=\underset{n,m}{}\frac{C_n^mJ_m(k_n^mr)J_m(k_n^mr^{})e^{im(\theta \theta ^{})}}{zϵ_n^m+i\delta _n^m},$$
(7)
where $`k_n^m`$ are the complex zeros of $`A_m^2(k)+B_m^2(k)`$, with $`(\mathrm{}k_n^m)^2/(2m_e^{})=ϵ_n^mi\delta _n^m`$, $`\delta _n^m>0`$, and from the residues of the integrand in Eq. (5) one obtains:

$$C_n^m=\frac{ik_n^m}{\frac{(A_m^2(k)+B_m^2(k))}{k}|_{k=k_n^m}}.$$
(8)
In practice, in Eq.(7) we include only the terms for which $`ϵ_n^m<E_c`$, where the cut off energy $`E_c`$ is typically taken as three times the Fermi energy. Thus, Eq. (7) is an asymptotic low-energy expansion. It reduces to Eq. (6) for a hard-wall corral.

A quantity of interest (because it is proportional to $`dI/dV`$ knorr ; schi ) is the local density of conduction states $`\rho _s^0(r,\theta ,ϵ)`$ which for $`r<r_0`$ is given by

$$\rho _s^0(r,\theta ,ϵ)=\underset{\eta 0^+}{lim}\frac{1}{\pi }ImG_s^0(ϵ+i\eta ;r,\theta ,r,\theta ).$$
(9)
In Fig. 1 we compare the contribution to the exact $`\rho _s^0`$ of the states with angular momentum projection $`m=1`$, with the corresponding expression using the partial summation in Eq. (7). We have taken an effective mass $`m_e^{}=0.38m_e`$ where $`m_e`$ is the electron mass cro ; euc . As in recent experiments man2 , we have taken $`r_0=63.5`$ Å, so that the fourth state (ordered in increasing energy) with $`m=1`$ falls at $`ϵ_F`$ note . Finally we took $`W=15\mathrm{}^2/(2m_e^{}r_0)2.37`$eVÅ in order that the width of this state would be $`\delta _4^1=0.0213`$ eV, similar to that reported in some experiments cro . The point of observation $`r=0.14r_0`$ was taken at the maximum of $`J_1(\gamma _4^1r)`$. One can see that the result in Fig 1 is consistent with the fact expected from previous studies with potentials that vanish except in a finite region cal : the discrete sum Eq. (7) reproduces the low-energy part of $`G_s^0`$.

In Fig. 2 we represent $`\delta _n^m`$ as a function of $`ϵ_n^m`$. As a first approximation, $`\delta _n^m/ϵ_n^m`$ is a constant, independent of $`m`$ and $`n`$. In any case, $`\delta _n^m`$ seems to depend on $`n`$ and $`m`$ only through $`ϵ_n^m`$. This result is surprising. For a given confining potential $`W`$, one would naively expect that $`\delta _n^m`$ increases with the radial part of the kinetic energy, being rather independent of the angular part. However, as $`m`$ increases, the weight of the wave functions near the border of the corral ($`rr_0`$) also increases and compensates the decay in radial velocity.

To study the effects of changes in the magnitude of the confining potential, we started form a situation with $`ϵ_4^1=ϵ_F`$ for rigid walls ($`W+\mathrm{}`$). As $`W`$ decreases, $`ϵ_4^1`$ decreases slightly, its width $`\delta _4^1`$ increases and the position $`r_M`$ of the maximum of $`\rho _s^0(r,\theta ,ϵ)`$ for $`ϵ=ϵ_4^1`$ deviates from its value $`0.138r_0`$ for $`W+\mathrm{}`$ towards larger values. These changes are illustrated in Table 1. The change in $`ϵ_4^1`$ can be interpreted, in a first approximation, as a small increase of the effective mass. In fact, using known properties of the Bessel functions abra , it can be shown that for $`W\mathrm{}`$, the effective mass increases by a factor $`1+\mathrm{}^2/(m_e^{}r_0W)`$. Fitting the lowest energies of a circular corral with a model with hard walls, gives $`m_e^{}=0.38m_e`$ cro ; note . For moderate $`W`$, it seems that $`\delta _4^11/W`$, however for large $`W`$, $`\delta _n^m1/W^2`$ . In contrast to $`\delta _4^1`$, $`r_m`$ is only weakly dependent on $`W`$ (see Table 1).

What happens with $`ϵ_n^m`$ and $`\delta _n^m`$ if the size of the corral is changed? We expect that $`W`$ remains constant, independent of $`r_0`$. If $`r_0`$ is increased by a factor $`f`$, changing variables in the Schrödinger equation (1), to $`\rho =r/f`$, one realizes that (except for normalization) the following equality holds for the wave functions of given projection, position, energy and parameters of the potential:

$$\phi _m(r,\theta ,ϵ,fr_0,W)\phi _m(\frac{r}{f},\theta ,f^2ϵ,r_0,fW).$$
(10)
Then, increasing $`r_0`$ by a factor $`f`$ one expects, as a first approximation, a radial dilation by a factor $`f`$ of the corresponding wave function, a compression of the energy levels $`ϵ`$ by a factor of $`f^2`$, and for large $`W`$, that the widths $`\delta _i`$ remain approximately constant.

## III The many-body problem

In this section, we explain the model and approximations used to describe the electronic structure of a system composed of a quantum corral and a magnetic impurity inside it. Basically we consider surface states, described inside the corral by a Green function $`G_s^0`$ like that discussed in the previous section, hybridized with one localized $`d`$ orbital with an important on-site repulsion $`U`$ rap ; por ; hal ; ali2 . We also include an hybridization of the $`d`$ orbital with bulk states. We are neglecting the degeneracy of the $`d`$ level, which we believe is not important for the essential physics, and other $`s,p`$ orbitals brought by the impurity which might affect the magnitude of $`dI/dV`$ near the site impurity.

The Hamiltonian can be written as:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j\sigma }{}}\epsilon _js_{j\sigma }^{}s_{j\sigma }+{\displaystyle \underset{j\sigma }{}}\epsilon _j^bb_{j\sigma }^{}b_{j\sigma }+E_d{\displaystyle \underset{i\sigma }{}}d_{i\sigma }^{}d_{i\sigma }+`$ (11)
$`+U{\displaystyle d_{}^{}d_{}d_{}^{}d_{}}+{\displaystyle \underset{j\sigma }{}}V_s\lambda [\phi _j(R_i)d_\sigma ^{}s_{j\sigma }+\text{H.c.}]+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{j\sigma }{}}V_b^j[d_\sigma ^{}b_{j\sigma }+\text{H.c.}].`$
where $`s_{j\sigma }^{}`$ ($`b_{j\sigma }^{}`$) are creation operators for an electron in the $`j^{th}`$ surface (bulk) conduction eigenstate in the absence of the impurity but including the corral. The impurity is placed at the two-dimensional position $`R_i`$ on the surface, and we assume that the hybridization of the impurity $`d`$ orbital with the surface state $`j`$ is proportional to its normalized wave function at that point $`\phi _j(R_i)`$. We write the proportionality constant as $`V_s\lambda `$, where $`V_s`$ is an energy (representing the hybridization in a tight binding model wei ; ali2 ) and $`\lambda =2.38`$ Å is the square root of the surface per Cu atom of a Cu(111) surface.

At sufficiently low temperature, the differential conductance $`dI/dV`$ when the STM tip is at position $`R_t`$ is proportional to the density of the mixed state schi ,

$$f_\sigma (R_t)=\lambda \underset{j}{}\phi _j(R_t)s_{j\sigma }+qd_\sigma ,$$
(12)
$$\frac{dI(V)}{dV}\rho _f(ϵ_F+eV)=\frac{1}{\pi }ImG_f^\sigma (ϵ_F+eV),$$
(13)
where $`G_f^\sigma (\omega )=f_\sigma ;f_\sigma ^{}_\omega `$ is the Green function of $`f_\sigma (R_t)`$, and $`q(R_t)`$ is the ratio between the tunneling matrix elements tip-impurity and tip-surface, and is significant only for very small $`R_tR_i`$, due to the rapid decay of the wave functions for $`d`$ states.

Using the equations of motion

$`(\omega ϵ_j)s_{j\sigma };s_{j\sigma }^{}_\omega `$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{jj}+V_s\lambda \overline{\phi }_j(R_i)d_\sigma ;s_{j,\sigma }^{}_\omega ,`$
$`(\omega ϵ_j)s_{j\sigma };d_\sigma ^{}_\omega `$ $`=`$ $`V_s\lambda \overline{\phi }_j(R_i)d_\sigma ;d_\sigma ^{}_\omega ,`$
$`(\omega ϵ_j)d_\sigma ;s_{j\sigma }^{}_\omega `$ $`=`$ $`V_s\lambda \phi _j(R_i)d_\sigma ;d_\sigma ^{}_\omega ,`$ (14)
$`G_f^\sigma `$ is expressed in terms of the Green function for the $`d`$ electrons $`G_d^\sigma (\omega )=d_\sigma ;d_\sigma ^{}_\omega `$, and the unperturbed conduction electron Green function for surface states $`G_s^0`$ . We drop the superscript $`\sigma `$ in the following because of the spin independence of the problem. The difference in $`G_f`$ between the results with and without impurity becomes:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }G_f=(V_s\lambda ^2G_s^0(R_t,R_i,\omega )+q)\times `$
$`\times \left(V_s\lambda ^2G_s^0(R_i,R_t,\omega )+q\right)G_d,.`$ (15)
where

$$G_s^0(R_1,R_2,\omega )=\underset{j}{}\frac{\phi _j(R_1)\overline{\phi }_j(R_2)}{\omega ϵ_j}.$$
(16)
We assume that $`G_s^0`$ is known from the one-body problem. For the circular corral, it has been discussed in the previous section.

The remaining task is to calculate $`G_d`$ using a many-body approach. The most accurate calculation would be to use the Wilson renormalization group wrg . However, the particular structure of the one-body problem, and the lack of continuous symmetries in the general case renders its application very difficult. We have used perturbation theory up to second order in $`U`$ yos ; hor . Near the symmetric case $`E_d+U/2=ϵ_F`$, the theory is quantitatively correct up to $`U8\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the resonant level width sil . Out of the symmetric case, interpolative self-consistent schemes lev ; kaj  still work for moderately large values of $`U`$ dots ; pc . In particular, the persistent current in small rings with quantum dots practically coincides with exact results pc . Here we assume a situation in which the effective one-particle $`d`$ level $`E_d^{eff}=E_d+Ud_\sigma ^{}d_\sigma `$ is very near the Fermi level. This is justified by first-principle calculations llois  and allows us to avoid selfconsistency.

Then:

$$[G_d(\omega )]^1=[G_d^0(\omega )]^1\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega ),$$
(17)
where $`G_d^0`$ is $`G_d`$ for $`U=0`$ and $`E_d`$ replaced by $`E_d^{eff}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ is the self-energy up to second order in $`U`$ evaluated from a Feynmann diagram involving the analytical extension of the time ordered $`G_d^0`$ to Matsubara frequencies yos ; hor :

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(i\omega _l,T)`$ $`=`$ $`U^2T{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}G_d^0(i\omega _li\nu _m)\chi (i\nu _m),`$ (18)
$`\chi (i\nu _m)`$ $`=`$ $`T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}G_d^0(i\omega _n)G_d^0(i\omega _n+i\nu _m),`$ (19)
where $`\omega _n=(2n+1)\pi T`$ and $`\nu _m=2n\pi T`$.

From the equation of motion of $`G_d`$ for $`U=0`$ and using Eqs. (14) we obtain

$$G_d^0(\omega )=\frac{1}{\omega E_d^{eff}+i\delta _b(V\lambda )^2G_s^0(R_i,R_i,\omega )},$$
(20)
where we have replaced

$$\text{Im}\underset{i}{}\frac{|V_b^i|^2}{\omega +i\eta ϵ_i}=\delta _b$$
(21)
assuming that the $`V_b^i`$ and the bulk density of states are featureless near $`ϵ_F`$ and can be replaced by a constant. The real part of the sum can be absorbed in $`E_d^{eff}`$.

From the discussion of section II, and previous works cal , we know that $`G_s^0(R_i,R_i,\omega )`$ can be expanded as a sum of contributions from discrete poles. In particular, for the circular corral, $`G_s^0(\omega ;r,\theta ,r^{},\theta ^{})`$ is given by Eqs. (7) and (8). For other shapes of the corral, the results of the previous section suggest that within errors of a few percent:

$$G_s^0(\omega ,R_1,R_2)\underset{j}{}\frac{\phi _j^c(R_1)\overline{\phi }_j^c(R_2)}{\omega ϵ_j+i\delta _Fϵ_j/ϵ_F},$$
(22)
where now $`\phi _j^c(R)`$ are the discrete eigenstates of the hard wall corral and $`ϵ_j`$ are their energies, calculated with a slightly renormalized mass. $`\delta _F`$ is the width of the resonance at the Fermi level. In practice we cut off the sum in Eq. (22) at an energy $`3ϵ_F`$, retaining $`N`$ poles. Then, $`G_d^0(\omega )`$ can be expressed as a sum of $`N+1`$ poles and residues at these poles notepol  Denoting the poles of $`G_d^0(\omega )`$ by $`r_li\delta _l`$ and their residues by $`a_l`$, we can write:

$$G_d^0(\omega )=\underset{l=1}{\overset{N+1}{}}\frac{a_l}{\omega r_l+i\delta _l}.$$
(23)
This is the retarded Green function. In order to evaluate perturbative diagrams, like Eqs. (18), (19), one needs the analytical extension of the time ordered Green function to imaginary frequencies $`\omega i\omega _n`$ mahan ; note2 :

$$G_d^0(i\omega _n)=\underset{l}{}\frac{a_l+\overline{a_l}+(a_l\overline{a_l})\text{sgn}(\omega _n)}{2\left[i\omega _n+i\delta _l\text{sgn}(\omega _n)r_l\right]},$$
(24)
where $`\overline{a_l}`$ is the complex conjugate of $`a_l`$ and sgn$`(x)`$ is the sign of $`x`$. Here and in what follows, the origin of energies has been placed at the Fermi energy $`(ϵ_F=0)`$ for simplicity.

Using standard methods mahan , the sums over Matsubara frequencies, Eqs. (18), (19) can be transformed into integrals over branch cuts. The first integral can be done analytically in terms of the digamma function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(z)`$ abra . A lengthy but straightforward algebra after analytical continuation back to real $`\omega `$ leads to:

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{U^2}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dy[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{y/T}1}}G_d^0(\omega y)Im\chi (y)+`$ (25)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{y/T}+1}}\text{Im}G_d^0(y)\chi (\omega +y)],`$
where

$`\chi (\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}\left(A_{lm}(\omega )B_{lm}(\omega )\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_l(0)+`$ (26)
$`+\left(\overline{B_{lm}}(\omega )\overline{A_{lm}}(\omega )\right)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_l}(0)+`$
$`\left(B_{lm}(\omega )+A_{lm}(\omega )\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_l(\omega )`$
$`\left(\overline{B_{lm}}(\omega )+\overline{A_{lm}}(\omega )\right)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_l}(\omega ),`$
with

$`A_{lm}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a_la_m}{\omega +r_lr_mi\delta _l+i\delta _m}},`$
$`B_{lm}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a_l\overline{a_m}}{\omega r_l+r_m+i\delta _l+i\delta _m}},`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_l(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _l+i(r_l\omega )}{2\pi T}}\right).`$ (27)
Summarizing, our approximation for the Green function of the $`d`$ electrons $`G_d`$ consist in the following steps: we first decompose the unperturbed Green function $`G_d^0`$ given by Eq. (20), and (7) or (22) into a sum of poles, Eq. (23). Then, the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(\omega )`$ is calculated using Eqs. (25), (26) and (27), and finally $`G_d`$ is obtained from Eq. (17). The change in $`dI/dV`$ after adding the impurity can then be evaluated using Eqs. (13) and (15).

## IV Results

### IV.1 The elliptical corral

The line shape of the change in differential conductance after adding the impurity, $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ has been reported for the elliptical corral with eccentricity $`e=0.5`$ and semimajor axis of $`71.3`$ Å with a Co impurity placed at the left focus man . Comparison with our results determines the value of $`V_s`$ which leads to the observed line width $`0.009`$ eV. We took $`U=1`$eV and assumed a situation near the symmetric case, for which the Hartree-Fock $`E_d^{eff}`$ level is near $`ϵ_F`$ llois . We shifted $`E_d^{eff}`$ so that the minimum of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ as a function of energy lies near the experimental position. $`E_d^{eff}`$ might be calculated using self-consistent interpolative approaches (lev ; kaj ; dots ; pc ), but we avoided them here. We have taken two values for the level width of the conduction states at $`ϵ_F`$, $`\delta _F=0.02`$ eV, suggested by some experiments cro  and $`\delta _F=0.04`$ eV, which leads to the observed ratio $`1/8`$ between the intensity in $`dI/dV`$ at the mirage ($`R_i`$) and at the impurity ($`R_i`$) rap . For $`\delta _F=0.04`$ eV and $`\delta _b=0`$, we obtain that $`V_s=0.68`$ eV and $`q0.03`$, leads approximately to the observed line shape. They also explain the line shape when the impurity is placed on a clean surface ali2 . We then decrease the value of $`V_s`$ by a factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$ to $`V_s=0.48`$ eV and increase the resonant level width of the impurity to $`\delta _b=0.032`$ eV in such a way that the width of the Kondo peak in the impurity density of states $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ (not shown) is the same as before. This conditions implies approximately the same contribution from bulk and surface states to the Kondo resonance, as assumed in previous studies aga . As shown in Fig. 3, and in agreement with previous calculations wil , both sets of parameters lead to very similar results except for a scale factor. This factor is approximately $`V_s^2`$, as expected from Eq. (15)

The decrease in the intensity of the resonance at the mirage point with respect to the impurity position can be understood from Eqs. (15) and (22) and is a consequence of the destructive interference of the $`42^{th}`$ state of the ellipse (which lies at the Fermi level and is even under reflection through the minor axis $`\sigma `$) with other states which are odd under $`\sigma `$ (like states 32, 35, and 51): all terms contribute to the same sign to the dominant imaginary part of the sum in Eq. (22) for $`R_1=R_2`$, while there is a partial cancellation for $`R_1=R_2`$. This interference decreases with decreasing $`\delta _F`$ and the intensity at the mirage point increases. For $`\delta _F=0.02`$ eV, $`V_s`$ should be decreased slightly to $`0.63`$ eV to keep the same width of the resonance, for $`\delta _b=0`$. Taking $`V_s=0.45`$ eV and increasing $`\delta _b`$ from zero to $`\delta _b=0.035`$ eV to keep the width of $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ (as above), the result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝑑\omega \rho _f(\omega )(f(\omega )/\omega )\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ is shown in Fig. 4 for two different temperatures. At $`T=0`$, in comparison with the previous results for $`\delta _F=0.04`$ eV, the intensity at the mirage increased to nearly $`60\%`$ of that at the impurity position. At the Kondo temperature, the resonances at both positions broaden and the amplitude at the minima decrease more than $`50\%`$ of the zero temperature result. Most of the broadening is due to the effect of the derivative of the Fermi function, $`f(\omega )/\omega `$. In fact, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _f(\omega )`$ at the impurity looses only $`1/3`$ of the intensity and broadens very little as $`T`$ is increased from $`0`$ to $`0.005eV`$.

If $`\delta _F`$ is further reduced, the space dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _f(\omega )`$ is almost exactly that of the conduction eigenstate at $`ϵ_F`$ and therefore the intensities at both foci are practically the same. However, the shape of the resonance strongly changes, and two positive contributions to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _f(\omega )`$ appear at both sides of $`ϵ_F`$. This has been shown before for $`\delta _b=0`$, ali2  and is a consequence of the splitting of the Kondo peak in the impurity density of states $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ rap ; wil . This splitting of the Kondo peak into two peaks at both sides of the Fermi energy, which was obtained first in perturbation theory rap ; ali2  and later by exact calculation of a reduced Hamiltonian plus embedding in the rest of the system wil  has been recently confirmed by numerical Wilson renormalization group calculations in a simpler system with U(1) symmetry cor . As shown in Fig. 5, this effect remains for $`\delta _b0`$, although the split peaks in $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ do not reduce to two delta functions for $`\delta _F=0`$ in this case (see Fig. 6). In Fig. 6 we also show the temperature dependence of $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ for the parameters of Fig. 4.

So far, the experiments were done at very small temperatures ($`T4`$ K $`T_K50`$ K), and there is no appreciable difference with the $`T=0`$ results. A study of the temperature dependence would confirm that the resonance is due to a many-body effect. In general (including other situations discussed below), the scale of the $`T`$ dependence is determined by $`T_K`$, which in turn is given by half of the with of the peak in the impurity spectral density $`\rho _d(\omega )`$. As can be seen comparing Figs. 4 and 6, for moderate $`\delta _F`$ (like $`\delta _F=0.02`$ eV), this width is larger than the width of the dip in the conduction electron spectral density $`\rho _c(\omega )`$ or in $`\rho _f(\omega )`$.

The essential features of the space dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ are very similar to that discussed previously rap ; wil  and will not be reproduced here. Essentially it reflects the electron density of the conduction state at $`ϵ_F`$, somewhat blurred out of the impurity position for $`\delta _F0.03`$ eV.

In the following we use the four set of parameters which lead to a reasonable line shape at the impurity site ($`\delta _F=0.02`$ eV or $`\delta _F=0.04`$ eV, $`\delta _b=0`$ or $`\delta _b0`$) to study other situations for which the voltage dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ has not been reported. We first consider an elliptical corral with the same eccentricity but semimajor axis reduced from $`a=71.3`$ Å to $`a=64.6`$ Å. In this case, the conduction state 35 (instead of 42) of the ellipse falls at $`ϵ_F`$. The electronic density of this state $`\left|\phi _{35}(R)\right|^2`$, has maxima at $`R=\pm 0.4a`$, displaced from the foci $`R=\pm 0.5a`$. Studying the negative interference at the mirage point, one expects a stronger mirage at $`R_t=0.4a`$ if the impurity is placed at $`R_i=0.4a`$ rap . We studied two cases, with the impurity at one focus or at one maximum of $`\left|\phi _{35}(R)\right|^2`$ for the four set of parameters mentioned above (actually, from the discussion of the previous section, one would expect a $`10\%`$ reduction of $`\delta _F`$, with respect to the larger ellipse, but we neglect it). For $`R_i=0.5a`$ (impurity on focus), the resonance narrows with respect to the previous case. This is mainly due to the fact that the effective hybridization of the state at the Fermi level is proportional to $`\left|\phi _{35}(R_i)\right|^2`$ which is approximately $`60\%`$ of $`\left|\phi _{42}(R_i)\right|^2`$ of the larger ellipse. The total width is near $`0.005`$ eV for $`\delta _b=0`$ , and near $`0.007`$ eV for $`\delta _b0`$ (see Fig. 7 (a)). The intensity of the depression at the other focus $`R_t=0.5a`$ is roughly half of that at $`R_t=0.4a`$ at the extremum of $`\phi _{35}(R_i)`$ near that focus. In particular for $`\delta _F=0.02`$ eV (not shown), the dip in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _f(\omega )`$ at $`R_t=0.4a`$ is slightly more pronounced than that at the impurity position $`R_t=R_i=0.5a`$.

When the impurity is placed at one extremum of $`\phi _{35}(R)`$, $`R_t=0.4a`$, the peak broadens with respect to the larger ellipse to $`0.015`$ eV for $`\delta _b=0`$, or $`0.012`$ eV for $`\delta _b0`$, due to the $`20\%`$ larger effective hybridization with the state at $`ϵ_F`$ (see Fig. 7 (b)). As expected rap , the intensity at the mirage point $`R_t=0.4a`$, compared to the impurity point is larger in the smaller ellipse.

While the intensity of the mirage is closely related with the hybridization of the impurity with the state at $`ϵ_F`$, the width of the peak in the impurity spectral density and hence $`T_K`$ depends on the effective hybridization with the impurity of all conduction states. For example, if in the ellipse of the original experiments one suppresses artificially the hybridization with the main odd states 32, 35, and 51, the width in $`\rho _d(\omega )`$ is reduced to roughly half its value for realistic $`\delta _F`$, while the magnitude of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ at the mirage point increases substantially, reaching almost the same magnitude as in the focus occupied by the impurity. The width in $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ is less sensitive to the parameters as that of $`\rho _d(\omega )`$. As expected, this sensitivity is decreased for increasing $`\delta _F`$.

### IV.2 The circular corral

In this section we study the voltage and space dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ for a circular corral, for conditions corresponding to recent experiments man2 : a radius $`r_063.5`$ Å, such that the degenerate $`37^{th}`$ and $`38^{th}`$ conduction eigenstates lie at the Fermi energy. In contrast to the elliptical corral, we do not use the approximate expression (22) for the conduction electron Green’s function, but the correct expansion given by Eqs. (7) and (8). The width of the resonant states is determined by the potential scattering at the boundary $`W`$, and its value at the Fermi energy $`\delta _F`$ is given in Table 1.

In Fig 8 we show $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _{f\sigma }\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ for an impurity placed at a distance $`0.146r_0`$ to the center (corresponding to a maximum of the conduction density of states, see Table 1), for $`W=7\mathrm{}^2/(2m_e^{}r_0)`$, and other parameters similar to Figs. 3(b) or 7. As in previous cases, an intense resonance is observed not only at $`R_i`$ but also near $`R_i`$. The maximum of the absolute value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _{f\sigma }`$ for the mirage is slightly displaced towards $`0.18r_0`$.We also show in Fig 8 the results using the approximation for the unperturbed conduction electron Green’s function $`G_s^0`$ based on the wave functions for the hard wall, Eq. (22). The resonance is broader in this case. This is due to the fact that with decreasing $`W`$, not only the maximum in real space of the conduction density of states shifts, but also the spectral weight of the resonance at $`ϵ_F`$ near this maximum decreases, leading to a smaller effective hybridization. When $`W`$ is increased so that $`\delta _F0.02`$eV, the intensity at $`R_i`$ increases. Also when $`\delta _b=0`$ is taken, increasing $`V_s`$ the resonances broaden by $`20\%`$. These changes are qualitatively similar to those reported for the smaller ellipse.

The space dependence of the conduction density of states is shown in Fig. 9. The two clear minima near $`\pm R_i`$ can be seen, one of them corresponding to the impurity and the other to the mirage, in agreement with experiments man2 . The addition of the impurity breaks the degeneracy of the states with $`m=\pm 1`$ at $`ϵ_F`$. If the zero line of the angular variable $`\theta `$ is aligned with the impurity, the wave function which hybridizes with the impurity has an angular dependence proportional to $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, and the remaining one, proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ does not hybridize. This has led to the proposal man2  that two independent and simultaneous mirages can be observed placing two impurities at the same distance from the center and forming an angle of $`90`$ degrees. While this seems in agreement with experiment, the conduction states with even $`m`$ (which lie out of $`ϵ_F`$), introduce a small interaction between both channels.

To end this section we discuss what happens when $`r_0`$ is slightly reduced in such a way that the degenerate $`35^{th}`$ and $`36^{th}`$ conduction eigenstates lie at the Fermi energy. These states have $`m=\pm 3`$ so that one expects five different mirages as a function of the angle $`\theta `$, located near $`r=0.32r_0`$, where the eigenstates for a hard wall corral are peaked. Since the value of the wave function at these extrema is nearly 3/4 times smaller than in the previous case, the effective hybridization of the impurity with the states at the Fermi energy is reduced. As a consequence, the Kondo depression observed in the energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ is narrower (with a total width of $``$ 0.008 eV for $`\delta _F0.02`$eV and $`\delta _b0`$), and the intensity at the mirages is smaller. In Fig. 10 we show the space dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _{s\sigma }\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ for parameters near those of Fig. 4. A potential $`W`$ corresponding to harder walls (leading to $`\delta _F0.02`$eV) than in Fig. 9 has been chosen in order that the different mirages can be clearly seen. The most intense ones are those for $`\theta =\pm 120`$ degrees. In addition to the five depressions in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _{s\sigma }(R_t)`$ corresponding to the mirages, one can see a ring of positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _{s\sigma }`$ centered at the impurity site at $`R_i=0.337r_0`$ and radius smaller than $`r_0`$. The intensity of this ring increases with decreasing $`W`$ (softer walls) and is therefore also apparent in Fig. 9. We believe that this feature is probably related with the Friedel oscillations which are observed experimentally when the impurity is placed on the clean surface knorr .

## V Spin-spin correlations

The conventional view of the Kondo effect for an impurity in an ordinary metal, interprets it in terms of a magnetic screening cloud around the impurity of radius

$$\xi =\mathrm{}v_F/T_K,$$
(28)
where $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity. The existence of this cloud is still controversial sor ; barz ; col . Recent theoretical work has shown that the persistent current as a function of flux $`j(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ in mesoscopic rings with quantum dots changes its shape smoothly as the length of the ring $`L`$ goes through $`\xi `$ and that $`jL`$ is a universal function of $`L/\xi `$ pc ; aff .

In spite of this controversy, it is interesting to study the effect of the corral on the space dependence of spin-spin correlations. To this end we consider the correlations between the impurity spin $`𝐒`$ and that of the surface conduction states at position $`r`$, $`𝐬(r)`$

$$𝐒𝐬(r)=\underset{j\alpha \beta \gamma \delta }{}\frac{\lambda ^2}{4}\overline{\phi }_j(r)\phi _j(r)d_\alpha ^{}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }d_\beta s_{j\gamma }^{}\sigma _{\gamma \delta }s_{j\delta }.$$
(29)
For infinite confinement ($`W+\mathrm{}`$, $`\delta _F=0`$), exact numerical results in a reduced basis set show that the space dependence of this function follows closely the probability of the wave function lying at the Fermi level wil . However, as discussed before, this situation is not realistic.

In the uncorrelated case $`U=0`$, using Wick’s theorem and the symmetry of the ground state one has:

$$𝐒𝐬(r)=\frac{3}{2}\lambda \left|\underset{j}{}\phi _j(r)d_\sigma ^{}s_{j\sigma }\right|^2.$$
(30)
The saddle point approximation of the slave boson treatment of the Anderson model colb , or of the $`1/N`$ expansion of the Kondo model col , lead to a similar expression. Here we use Eq. (30) as an approximation for the finite $`U`$ problem. This amounts to an infinite partial summation of diagrams which can be separated into two pieces. The expectation value entering Eq. (30) can be related to $`G_d(\omega )`$ without further approximations using equations of motion. At zero temperature this leads to:

$$𝐒𝐬(r)\frac{3\lambda ^4}{2\pi ^2}\left|\underset{j}{}\overline{\phi }_j(R_i)\phi _j(r)^{ϵ_F}𝑑\omega \text{Im}\frac{G_d(\omega )}{\omega +i\eta ϵ_j}\right|^2$$
(31)
We believe that the main qualitative features of the problem are retained by this approximation, at least for $`r\xi `$ which is the relevant case for the corrals. To check this, we evaluated this expression for the case of a Kondo impurity in an ordinary three-dimensional metal, assuming (as usual in this case) that plane waves describe the conduction electrons, and (except for a multiplicative constant) $`G_d(\omega )1/(\omega ϵ_F+iT_K)`$ por ; aga , with $`T_Kϵ_F`$. Calling $`I(ϵ_j)`$ the integral entering Eq. (31) and linearizing the spectrum around $`ϵ_F=\mathrm{}v_Fk_F`$ one has:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\overline{\phi }_j(𝐑_i)\phi _j(𝐫)I(ϵ_j)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle d^3𝐤\mathrm{exp}(i𝐤𝐫)I(\mathrm{}v_Fk)}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_F}{r}}{\displaystyle 𝑑k\mathrm{sin}(kr)I(\mathrm{}v_Fk)}.`$
Here the vectors are denoted by boldface ($`𝐤,𝐫`$) to distinguish them from their absolute values ($`k,r`$). Changing variable $`z=(k`$ $`k_F)\xi `$, and performing the integral in $`\omega `$ ($`I(\mathrm{}v_Fk)`$), we obtain except for a constant:

$$𝐒𝐬(r)\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(k_Fr)}{r^2}g(r/\xi ),$$
(33)
$$g(r/\xi )=𝑑z\mathrm{cos}(\frac{zr}{\xi })\frac{\pi |z|/2\mathrm{ln}(z)}{z^2+1}.$$
(34)
$`g(0)`$ diverges unless one introduces a cutoff at $`|z|k_F\xi =ϵ_F/T_K`$. For other values of the argument the integral can be extended to infinity at both sides, and it can be related to tabulated integrals grad . The result is:

$$g(x)=\pi e^xEi(x)\text{}x0,$$
(35)
where $`Ei(x)=_{\mathrm{}}^x𝑑t\mathrm{exp}(t)/t`$ is the integral exponential function. The function $`g(r/\xi )`$ is represented in Fig.11 for several values of the cutoff in $`|`$$`z`$$`|`$. As seen in the figure, this cutoff only modifies the function for small arguments. There is a crossover for $`r\xi `$ and for $`r\xi `$, $`g(r/\xi )`$ decays linearly with $`r`$, leading to a $`1/r^3`$ decay of $`𝐒𝐬(r)`$. The functional form of $`𝐒𝐬(r)`$ is very similar to that of the spin susceptibility suggested by Sorensen and Affleck sor ; barz  for $`r\xi `$. However, for $`r\xi `$ they obtain an exponential decay. Therefore, we expect that the main features of the space dependence of the correlation function are retained by the approximation Eq. (30) for $`r\xi `$.

In Fig. 12, we show the evaluation of Eq. (31) for the elliptical corral, with the parameters of Fig.4 and zero temperature. In contrast to $`dI/dV`$ or the local spectral density of states near $`ϵ_F`$ (Fig. 4 and previous calculations for perfect confinement ($`\delta _F=0`$) wil , the spin correlations do not recover substantially at the empty focus, although still faint features related with the conduction state at the Fermi level ($`j=42`$) are still discernible.. The ratio of the spin correlations at both foci is $`1/170`$. Note that from $`T_K`$ and $`v_F`$ for surface electrons in the mirage experiments, one gets $`\xi 90`$ Å, slightly larger than the distance between foci. As it is clear from the calculation above, for $`r\xi `$ all conduction states (also those at high energies) contribute to the spin-spin correlations. Therefore, the destructive interference near the empty focus is larger than in the case of $`dI/dV`$, in which mainly unperturbed conduction states near $`ϵ_F`$ are sampled. The participation of high energy electrons in the formation of the singlet ground state has been stressed recently col .

## VI Summary and discussion

We have studied the 2D Green’s function for free electrons, subject to a potential that simulates a continuous circular corral. We disregarded the hybridization with bulk states at the boundary of the corral. In scattering theories, an imaginary part is introduced for the phase shift to take into account this effect in phenomenological way cro ; aga ; fie , and this leads to loss of intensity at the mirage point when an impurity is introduced in the corral. In our theory this loss of intensity comes as a result of quantum interference, as explained in Section IV. Although the density of states is continuous in space and energy, the energy dependence of the Green’s function at low energies can be written as a sum of discrete poles, representing resonant states. This property is expected to persist for more realistic potentials which might include hybridization with bulk states or individual atoms at the boundary at the corral cal . The introduction of a width $`\delta _i`$ of each resonance is the main difference with a calculation assuming a hard wall corral. The energies $`ϵ_i`$ and the space dependence of the density of states inside corral are well described by the calculation assuming hard walls, but the magnitude of the latter is somewhat overestimated. Our model leads to a width of each resonance $`\delta _i`$, which is to a first approximation, proportional to its energy $`ϵ_i`$ . We must warn however that at least above the Fermi energy, the surface states have an intrinsic width, even in absence of the corral hub . Thus, while we expect that $`\delta _i`$ can be reduced for example by depositing a second line of atoms at the boundary of the corral, there are probably intrinsic limits to this reduction. Another shortcoming of our one-body calculation is that actually the effective mass depends on energy. Photoemission experiments suggest a flattening of the dispersion above $`ϵ_F`$ hub . This is also apparent in the comparison of experimental energy levels for a circular corral an those of a hard wall calculation cro  and persists in our results for soft boundaries.

The expansion as a sum of discrete poles of the conduction electron Green’s function is a convenient starting point for a perturbative treatment of the Anderson model that describes the physics when a magnetic impurity is introduced inside the corral. The line shape of the change in differential conductance $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ and the relative intensity at points distant from the impurity (where a “mirage” of the impurity is observed man ) is very sensitive to $`\delta _i`$. This sensitivity is reduced but persists if an important intrinsic width $`\delta _b`$ of the impurity level due to direct hybridization with bulk states is introduced. A smaller $`\delta _i`$ leads to a stronger intensity at the mirage point, and the space dependence tends to that of the conduction state at $`ϵ_F`$. However, for very small $`\delta _i`$ the line shape (voltage dependence), is strongly distorted and two peaks of positive weight of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ appears at moderate non-zero voltages. The line shape and its width depend also on the particular conditions of the experiment. This fact includes the case of the clean surface, as observed experimentally man , and calculated before ali2 . A larger width and more intense resonance is expected when the wave function of the conduction state which lies at the Fermi energy has a stronger amplitude at the impurity.

While the space dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ is determined only by the conduction electron Green’s function in absence of the impurity (see Eqs. (13) and (15)), the voltage dependence is very sensitive to the impurity Green’s function. Most previous theories either assume or fit this line shape por ; aga ; fie  or are unable to explain the observed one because $`\delta _i=0`$ was assumed hal . Also while numerical diagonalization with $`\delta _i=0`$ and a reduced basis set show spin-spin correlations which remind the conduction state at the Fermi level wil , we obtain using additional approximations discussed in Section V, that no appreciable projection to the mirage point is present in these correlations. This is due to the fact that the screening of the spin involves conduction states far from the Fermi energy $`ϵ_F`$, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ selects states near $`ϵ_F`$. These experiments seem unable to settle the still controversial issue of the Kondo cloud sor ; barz ; col . Instead, a crossover as a function of size is expected in mesoscopic rings pc ; aff .

Our many-body theory is able to explain the main features of the space and voltage dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ in several experiments involving the quantum mirageman ; man2  and predictions for other geometries and experimental conditions were made. While it would be interesting to test this predictions and study the effects of temperature, the theory has some limitations. A real Co atom added to a Cu(111) surface has degenerate localized 3d levels with strong correlations. We have taken only one d orbital with a moderate on-site Coulomb repulsion $`U=1`$ eV to be able to use the perturbative approach. We believe however that these shortcomings affect quantitative details but do not invalidate our conclusions. Previous results using larger values of $`U`$ and a different technique led to results very similar to the perturbative ones wil . A Co atom also has extended 4s and 4p electrons, which should have a large hopping to the STM tip when it is near the impurity. This should affect the amplitude of $`\mathrm{\Delta }dI/dV`$ at moderate distances to the impurity. This effect has so far been neglected in the theories of the mirage effect.

## Acknowledgments

This work was sponsored by PICT 03-06343 of ANPCyT. One of us (AAA) is partially supported by CONICET.