https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202023000009
Spectral features of voltage pulses in interacting helical channels
1 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, Via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146, Genova, Italy
2 CNR-SPIN, Via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146, Genova, Italy
3 Aix-Marseille Univ, Université de Toulon, CNRS, CPT, Marseille, France
4 Institute for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, University of Würzburg, D-97074, Würzburg, Germany
5 NEST, Istituto Nanoscienze-CNR and Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza San Silvestro 12, I-56127, Pisa, Italy
∗ Corresponding author: acciai@fisica.unige.it
Published online: 11 March 2020
We investigate the interplay of voltage-driven excitations and electron-electron interactions in a pair of counterpropagating helical channels capacitively coupled to a time-dependent gate. By focusing on the non-equilibrium spectral properties of the system, we show how the spectral function is modified by external drives with different time profile in presence of Coulomb interactions. In particular, we focus on a Lorentzian drive and a square single pulse. In presence of strong enough electron-electron interactions, we find that both drives can result in minimal excitations, i.e. characterized by an excess spectral function with a definite sign. This is in contrast with what happens in the non-interacting case, where only properly quantized Lorentzian pulses are able to produce minimal excitations.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2020
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