Ultranarrow resonance in Coulomb drag between quantum wires at coinciding densities

TL;DR

This paper studies how electron density mismatch affects Coulomb drag in quantum wires, revealing a narrow resonance at equal densities that is broadened by multi-particle scattering processes.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic equation approach to analyze Coulomb drag dependence on density mismatch, highlighting the ultranarrow resonance at zero mismatch and the role of multi-particle scattering.

Findings

Resistivity shows a sharp peak at zero density mismatch.

Multi-particle scattering broadens the resonance.

Dependence of drag on mismatch varies with scattering strength.

Abstract

We investigate the influence of the chemical potential mismatch $\Delta$ (different electron densities) on Coulomb drag between two parallel ballistic quantum wires. For pair collisions, the drag resistivity $\rho_{\rm D}(\Delta)$ shows a peculiar anomaly at $\Delta=0$ with $\rho_{\rm D}$ being finite at $\Delta=0$ and vanishing at any nonzero $\Delta$. The "bodyless" resonance in $\rho_{\rm D}(\Delta)$ at zero $\Delta$ is only broadened by processes of multi-particle scattering. We analyze Coulomb drag for finite $\Delta$ in the presence of both two- and three-particle scattering within the kinetic equation framework, focusing on a Fokker-Planck picture of the interaction-induced diffusion in momentum space of the double-wire system. We describe the dependence of $\rho_{\rm D}$ on $\Delta$ for both weak and strong intrawire equilibration due to three-particle scattering.