Dephasing via stochastic absorption: a case study in Aharonov-Bohm oscillations

Abstract

The Aharonov-Bohm ring has been the mainstay of mesoscopic physics research since its inception. In this paper we deal with the problem of dephasing of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations using a phenomenological model based on stochastic absorption. To calculate the conductance in the presence of inelastic scattering we have used the method due to Brouwer and Beenakker. We have shown that conductance is symmetric under flux reversal and visibility of AB oscillations decay to zero as a function of the incoherence parameter thus signaling dephasing in the system. Some comments are made on the relative merits of stochastic absorption with respect to optical potential model, which have been used to mimic dephasing.