Nonlinear Sigma Model for Normal and Superconducting Systems: A Pedestrian Approach

The nonlinear sigma model (NLSM) epitomises a field-theoretical approach to (interacting) electrons in disordered media. These lectures are aimed at the audience who might have vaguely heard about its existence but know very little of what is that, even less so of why it should be used and next to nothing of how it can be applied. These what, why and mainly how are the subject of the present lectures. In the first part, after a short description of why to be bothered, the NLSM is derived from scratch in a relatively simple (but still rather mathematical) way for non-interacting electrons in the presence of disorder, and some illustration of its perturbative usage is given. In the second part it is generalised, not without some leap of faith, to include the Coulomb repulsion and superconducting pairing.Comment: 21 pages, 5 eps figures. To appear in "Proceedings of the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi" Course CLI, edited by B. Altshuler and V. Tognetti, IOS Press, Amsterdam 200

One-Dimensional Transport of Ultracold Bosons

Advances in cooling and trapping of atoms have enabled unprecedented experimental control of many-body quantum systems. This led to the observation of numerous quantum phenomena, important for fundamental science, indispensable for high-precision simulations of condensed-matter systems and promising for technological applications. However, transport measurements in neutral quantum gases are still in their infancy in contrast to the central role they play in electronics. In these lectures, after reviewing nascent experiments on quantum fermionic transport, I will focus on our theoretical prediction sand the possibility of experimental observations of qualitatively new phenomena in transport of ultracold bosons which do not have a direct counterpart in quantum electronic transport in condensed matter systems. The description of this transport is based on the Luttinger liquid (LL) theory. So in the first part of the lectures I will introduce main concepts of the LL based on the functional bosonisation approach.Comment: Lecture notes for 13th International School on Theoretical Physics "Symmetry and Structural Properties of Condensed Matter", Sep 2018, Rzesz\'ow, Polan

Many-body effects in Landau levels: Non-commutative geometry and squeezed correlated states

We discuss symmetry-driven squeezing and coherent states of few-particle systems in magnetic fields. An operator approach using canonical transformations and the SU(1,1) algebras is developed for considering Coulomb correlations in the lowest Landau levels.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures; to be reported at 17th Int. Conf. on High Magnetic Fields in Semiconductor Physics, Wuerzburg, Germany, July 30 - Aug 4, 200

Superfluidity of "dirty" indirect excitons and magnetoexcitons in two-dimensional trap

The superfluid phase transition of bosons in a two-dimensional (2D) system with disorder and an external parabolic potential is studied. The theory is applied to experiments on indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells. The random field is allowed to be large compared to the dipole-dipole repulsion between excitons. The slope of the external parabolic trap is assumed to change slowly enough to apply the local density approximation (LDA) for the superfluid density, which allows us to calculate the Kosterlitz-Thouless temperature $T_{c}(n(r))$ at each local point $r$ of the trap. The superfluid phase occurs around the center of the trap ($\mathbf{r}=0$) with the normal phase outside this area. As temperature increases, the superfluid area shrinks and disappears at temperature $T_{c}(n(r=0))$. Disorder acts to deplete the condensate; the minimal total number of excitons for which superfluidity exists increases with disorder at fixed temperature. If the disorder is large enough, it can destroy the superfluid entirely. The effect of magnetic field is also calculated for the case of indirect excitons. In a strong magnetic field $H$, the superfluid component decreases, primarily due to the change of the exciton effective mass.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Impurity in the Tomonaga-Luttinger model: a Functional Integral Approach

In this tutorial notes we review a functional bosonization approach in the Keldysh technique to one-dimensional Luttinger liquid in the presence of an impurity.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of LXXXI Les Houches School on "Nanoscopic quantum transport", Les Houches, France, June 28-July 30, 200

Low-Temperature Decoherence of Qubit Coupled to Background Charges

We have found an exact expression for the decoherence rate of a Josephson charge qubit coupled to fluctuating background charges. At low temperatures $T$ the decoherence rate ${\Gamma}$ is linear in $T$ while at high temperatures it saturates in agreement with a known classical solution which, however, reached at surprisingly high $T$. In contrast to the classical picture, impurity states spread in a wide interval of energies ($\gg T$) may essentially contribute to ${\Gamma}$.Comment: Both figures are changed to illustrate a more generic case of impurity states spread in wide interval of energies. Some changes have been made to the abstract and the introductio

Impurity Scattering in Luttinger Liquid with Electron-Phonon Coupling

We study the influence of electron-phonon coupling on electron transport through a Luttinger liquid with an embedded weak scatterer or weak link. We derive the renormalization group (RG) equations which indicate that the directions of RG flows can change upon varying either the relative strength of the electron-electron and electron-phonon coupling or the ratio of Fermi to sound velocities. This results in the rich phase diagram with up to three fixed points: an unstable one with a finite value of conductance and two stable ones, corresponding to an ideal metal or insulator.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure