Landauer-type transport theory for interacting quantum wires: Application to carbon nanotube Y junctions

TL;DR

This paper develops a Landauer-like theoretical framework for nonlinear transport in networks of interacting quantum wires, specifically applied to carbon nanotube Y junctions, incorporating boundary conditions, charge conservation, and density matching.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Landauer-type approach for nonlinear transport in interacting quantum wire networks, with explicit solutions for carbon nanotube Y junctions.

Findings

Provides a solvable model for nonlinear transport in quantum wire networks.

Applies the theory to carbon nanotube Y junctions, relevant for experiments.

Incorporates boundary conditions and charge conservation explicitly.

Abstract

We propose a Landauer-like theory for nonlinear transport in networks of one-dimensional interacting quantum wires (Luttinger liquids). A concrete example of current experimental focus is given by carbon nanotube Y junctions. Our theory has three basic ingredients that allow to explicitly solve this transport problem: (i) radiative boundary conditions to describe the coupling to external leads, (ii) the Kirchhoff node rule describing charge conservation, and (iii) density matching conditions at every node.