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Semiclassical theory of potential scattering for massless Dirac fermions

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2013-04-30 v3 Mathematical Physics math.MP Quantum Physics

Abstract

In this paper we study scattering of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions by a potential that depends on a single Cartesian variable. Depending on the energy of the incoming particle and its angle of incidence, there are three different regimes of scattering. To find the reflection and transmission coefficients in these regimes, we apply the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB), also called semiclassical, approximation. We use the method of comparison equations to extend our prediction to nearly normal incidence, where the conventional WKB method should be modified due to the degeneracy of turning points. We compare our results to numerical calculations and find good agreement.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1206.2869,
  title  = {Semiclassical theory of potential scattering for massless Dirac fermions},
  author = {K. J. A. Reijnders and T. Tudorovskiy and M. I. Katsnelson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1206.2869},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

Minor revision; several references have been added