The 2-Channel Kondo Model II: CFT Calculation of Non-Equilibrium Conductance through a Nanoconstriction containing 2-Channel Kondo Impurities

TL;DR

This paper develops a non-equilibrium 2-channel Kondo model for nanoconstrictions, calculates conductance using conformal field theory, and demonstrates quantitative agreement with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces the nanoconstriction 2-channel Kondo model (NTKM) that accounts for non-equilibrium effects and computes conductance using CFT techniques, extending prior models.

Findings

Universal scaling curve matches experimental data

Quantitative agreement with conductance measurements

Extension of 2CK model to non-equilibrium conditions

Abstract

Recent experiments by Ralph and Buhrman on zero-bias anomalies in quenched Cu nanoconstrictions (reviewed in the preceding paper, I), are in accord with the assumption that the interaction between electrons and nearly degenerate two-level systems in the constriction can be described, for sufficiently small voltages and temperatures ($V,T < \Tk$), by the 2-channel Kondo (2CK) model. Motivated by these experiments, we introduce a generalization of the 2CK model, which we call the nanoconstriction 2-channel Kondo model (NTKM), that takes into account the complications arising from the non-equilibrium electron distribution in the nanoconstriction. We calculate the conductance $G(V,T)$ of the constriction in the weakly non-equilibrium regime of $V,T \ll \Tk$ by combining concepts from Hershfield's $Y$-operator formulation of non-equilibrium problems and Affleck and Ludwig's exact conformal field theory (CFT) solution of the 2CK problem (CFT technicalities are discussed in a subsequent paper, III). Finally, we extract from the conductance a universal scaling curve $\Gamma(v)$ and compare it with experiment. Combining our results with those of Hettler, Kroha and Hershfield, we conclude that the NTKM achieves quantitative agreement with the experimental scaling data.