Bohm-Aharonov and Kondo effects on tunneling currents in a mesoscopic ring

Abstract

We present an analysis of the Kondo effect on the Bohm-Aharonov oscillations of the tunneling currents in a mesoscopic ring with a quantum dot inserted in one of its arms. The system is described by an Andersonimpurity tight-binding Hamiltonian where the electron-electron interaction is restricted to the dot. The currents are obtained using nonequilibrium Green functions calculated through a cumulant diagrammatic expansion in the chain approximation. It is shown that at low temperature, even with the system out of resonance, the Kondo peak provides a channel for the electron to tunnel through the dot, giving rise to the Bohm-Aharonov oscillations of the current. At high temperature these oscillations are important only if the dot level is aligned to the Fermi level, when the resonance condition is satisfied.