Tunneling through an Aharonov-Bohm ring -- effects of dephasing by electron-electron interactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a non-perturbative numerical method to analyze how electron-electron interactions cause dephasing in electron tunneling through an Aharonov-Bohm ring, revealing high transmission probabilities even with weak interactions.

Contribution

It presents a novel numerical approach to study dephasing effects caused by electron-electron interactions in quantum rings, accounting for inelastic processes and spin-flip scattering.

Findings

Electron-electron interactions induce strong dephasing.

High transmission probability at flux Phi=pi with weak interactions.

Dephasing can be elastic or inelastic, with or without spin change.

Abstract

We develop a non-perturbative numerical method to study a single electron tunneling through an Aharonov-Bohm ring in the presence of bound, interacting electrons. Inelastic processes and spin-flip scattering are properly taken into account. We show that electron-electron interactions described by the Hubbard Hamiltonian lead to strong dephasing and we obtain high transmission probability at Phi=pi even at small interaction strength. Depending on the many-electron state on the ring, dephasing can occur in elastic or inelastic channels with or without changing the spin of the scattering electron.