Parity violation in Aharonov-Bohm systems: The spontaneous Hall effect
We show how macroscopic manifestations of P (and T) symmetry breaking can arise in a simple system subject to Aharonov-Bohm interactions. Specifically, we study the conductivity of a gas of charged particles moving through a dilute array of flux tubes. The interaction of the electrons with the flux...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 1994 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de la UB |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/10868 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2445/10868 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Efecte Hall Conductivitat elèctrica Matèria condensada Hall effect Electric conductivity Condensed matter |
| Sumario: | We show how macroscopic manifestations of P (and T) symmetry breaking can arise in a simple system subject to Aharonov-Bohm interactions. Specifically, we study the conductivity of a gas of charged particles moving through a dilute array of flux tubes. The interaction of the electrons with the flux tubes is taken to be of a purely Aharonov-Bohm type. We find that the system exhibits a nonzero transverse conductivity, i.e., a spontaneous Hall effect. This is in contrast to the fact that the cross sections for both scattering and bremsstrahlung (soft-photon emission) of a single electron from a flux tube are invariant under reflections. We argue that the asymmetry in the conductivity coefficients arises from many-body effects. On the other hand, the transverse conductivity has the same dependence on universal constants that appears in the quantum Hall effect, a result that we relate to the validity of the mean-field approximation. |
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