Transport in double-crossed Luttinger liquids

Abstract

We study transport through two Luttinger liquids (one-dimensional electrons interacting through a Coulomb repulsion in a metal) coupled together at two points. External voltage biases are incorporated through boundary conditions. We include density-density couplings as well as single-particle hops at the contacts. For weak repulsive interactions, transport through the wires remains undisturbed by the interwire couplings, which renormalize to zero. For strong repulsive interactions, the interwire couplings become strong. For symmetric barriers and no external voltage bias, a single gate voltage is sufficient to tune for resonance transmission in both wires. However, for asymmetric couplings or for finite external biases, the system is insulating.