Scaling of the conductance in a quantum wire

Abstract

The conductance G of an interacting nano-wire containing an impurity and coupled to non-interacting semi-infinite leads is studied using a functional renormalization group method. We obtain results for microscopic lattice models without any further idealizations. For an interaction which is turned on smoothly at the contacts we show that one-parameter scaling of G holds. If abrupt contacts are included we find power-law suppression of G with an exponent which is twice as large as the one obtained for smooth contacts and no one-parameter scaling. Our results show excellent agreement with the analytically known scaling function at Luttinger liquid parameter K=1/2 and numerical density-matrix renormalization group data.

5 pages, 5 figures included; contains new results for the conductance in the presence of contacts