Coulomb drag in mesoscopic rings

TL;DR

This paper develops a Luttinger liquid theory to analyze Coulomb drag effects in mesoscopic rings, revealing how electron interactions influence persistent currents, oscillation periods, and temperature-dependent behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework incorporating non-linear dispersion corrections to study Coulomb drag in mesoscopic rings, highlighting effects of electron interactions on quantum oscillations.

Findings

Interactions generate an additional phase affecting Aharonov-Bohm oscillations.

Drag depends on the parity of electron numbers in the rings.

A new temperature scale emerges where linear response theory breaks down.

Abstract

We develop a Luttinger liquid theory of the Coulomb drag of persistent currents flowing in concentric mesoscopic rings, by incorporating non-linear corrections to the electron dispersion relation. We demonstrate that at low temperatures, interactions between electrons in different rings generate an additional phase and thus alter the period of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations. The resulting nondissipative drag depends strongly on the relative parity of the electron numbers. We also show that interactions set a new temperature scale below which the linear response theory does not apply at certain values of external flux.