Fractional Aharonov-Bohm effect in mesoscopic rings

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong correlations in one-dimensional mesoscopic rings influence the Aharonov-Bohm effect, revealing a possible fractional periodicity of the persistent current independent of disorder or interaction details.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of fractional flux periodicity in persistent currents within correlated 1D rings modeled by Hubbard and t-J frameworks.

Findings

Persistent current may exhibit fractional periodicity $\

Fractional periodicity is independent of disorder and interaction details.

Results are valid in the dilute limit for strongly correlated models.

Abstract

We study the effects of correlations on a one dimensional ring threaded by a uniform magnetic flux. In order to describe the interaction between particles, we work in the framework of the U $\infty$ Hubbard and $t$-$J$ models. We focus on the dilute limit. Our results suggest the posibility that the persistent current has an anomalous periodicity $\phi_{0}/p$, where $p$ is an integer in the range $2\leq p\leq N_{e}$ ($N_{e}$ is the number of particles in the ring and $\phi_{0}$ is the flux quantum). We found that this result depends neither on disorder nor on the detailed form of the interaction, while remains the on site infinite repulsion.