Soliton like wave packets in quantum wires

TL;DR

This paper investigates non-dispersive wave packet behavior in quantum wires at Fano resonances, revealing conditions under which semi-classical formulas remain valid and highlighting the role of evanescent modes and charge conservation.

Contribution

It demonstrates soliton-like wave packet behavior in quantum wires at Fano resonances and provides criteria for their occurrence in multichannel systems.

Findings

Wave packets are non-dispersive at Fano resonances due to quantum back-scattering.

Semi-classical formulas like Friedel sum rule are exact under these conditions.

Evanescent modes can cause breakdown of Friedel sum rule even with charge conservation.

Abstract

At a Fano resonance in a quantum wire there is strong quantum mechanical back-scattering. When identical wave packets are incident along all possible modes of incidence, each wave packet is strongly scattered. The scattered wave packets compensate each other in such a way that the outgoing wave packets are similar to the incoming wave packets. This is as if the wave packets are not scattered and not dispersed. This typically happens for the kink-antikink solution of the Sine-Gordon model. As a result of such non-dispersive behavior, the derivation of semi-classical formulas like the Friedel sum rule and the Wigner delay time are exact at Fano resonance. For a single channel quantum wire this is true for any potential that exhibit a Fano resonance. For a multichannel quantum wire we give an easy prescription to check for a given potential, if this is true. We also show that validity of the Friedel sum rule may or may not be related to the conservation of charge. If there are evanescent modes then even when charge is conserved, Friedel sum rule may break down away from the Fano resonances.