Steve Simon

Abstract:

We present compelling experimental evidence for a successful electrostatic trapping of two-dimensional dipolar excitons that results in stable formation of a well-confined, high-density and spatially uniform dipolar exciton fluid. We show that, for at least half a microsecond, the exciton fluid sustains a density higher than the critical density for degeneracy if the exciton fluid temperature reaches the lattice temperature within that time. This method should allow for the study of strongly interacting bosons in two dimensions at low temperatures, and possibly lead towards the observation of quantum phase transitions of two-dimensional interacting excitons, such as superfluidity and crystallization. © 2006 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

We propose an experiment to probe the unconventional quantum statistics of quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall states by measurement of current noise. The geometry we consider is that of a Hall bar where two quantum point contacts introduce two interfering amplitudes for backscattering. Thermal fluctuations of the number of quasiparticles enclosed between the two point contacts introduce current noise, which reflects the statistics of the quasiparticles. We analyze Abelian ν=1/q states and the non-Abelian ν=5/2 state. © 2006 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

In a quantum dot with three leads, the transmission matrix t12 between two of these leads is a truncation of a unitary scattering matrix S, which we treat as random. As the number of channels in the third lead is increased, the constraints from the symmetry of S become less stringent and t12 becomes closer to a matrix of complex Gaussian random numbers with no constraints. We consider the distribution of the singular values of t12, which is related to a number of physical quantities.