Persistent currents in continuous one-dimensional disordered rings within the Hartree--Fock approximation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electron-electron interactions affect persistent currents in disordered one-dimensional rings using a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approach, revealing that interactions modify energy levels and currents without suppressing them.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed numerical analysis of persistent currents in continuous disordered rings with interactions within the Hartree-Fock approximation.

Findings

Interactions alter energy levels and current directions.

Persistent currents are not suppressed by electron-electron interactions.

Interactions induce a preferred diamagnetic current direction.

Abstract

We present numerical results for the zero temperature persistent currents carried by interacting spinless electrons in disordered one dimensional continuous rings. The disorder potential is described by a collection of delta-functions at random locations and strengths. The calculations are performed by a self-consistent Hartree-Fock (H-F) approximation. Because the H-F approximation retains the concept of single-electron levels, we compare the statistics of energy levels of noninteracting electrons with those of interacting electrons as well as of the level persistent currents. We find that the e-e interactions alters the levels and samples persistent currents and introduces a preffered diamagnetic current direction. In contrast to the analogous calculations that recently appeared in the literature for interacting spinless electrons in the presence of moderate disorder in tight-binding models we find no suppression of the persistent currents due to the e-e interactions.