English

Quantum dot attached to superconducting leads: Relation between symmetric and asymmetric coupling

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2017-05-10 v3

Abstract

We study the Anderson single-level quantum dot attached to two BCS superconducting leads with the same gap size. We reveal that a system with asymmetric tunnel coupling to the leads (ΓLΓR\Gamma_{L}\neq\Gamma_{R}) can be related to the symmetric system with the same net coupling strength Γ=ΓL+ΓR\Gamma=\Gamma_{L}+\Gamma_{R}. Surprisingly, it is the symmetric case which is the most general, meaning that all physical quantities in case of asymmetric coupling are fully determined by the symmetric ones. We give ready-to-use conversion formulas for the 0π0-\pi phase transition boundary, on-dot quantities, and the Josephson current, and illustrate them on the NRG results of Oguri, Tanaka and Bauer [Phys. Rev. B 87, 075432 (2013)] for the three-terminal setup. We apply our theory to the recent 0π0-\pi transition measurement of Delagrange et al. [Phys. Rev. B 93, 196437 (2016)] and determine the asymmetry of the experimental setup from the measured transition width. Finally, we establish that the widely assumed Kondo "universality" of physical quantities depending only on the ratio of the Kondo temperature and the superconducting gap TK/ΔT_{K}/\Delta cannot hold for asymmetric junctions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1610.08366,
  title  = {Quantum dot attached to superconducting leads: Relation between symmetric and asymmetric coupling},
  author = {Alžběta Kadlecová and Martin Žonda and Tomáš Novotný},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.08366},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

10 pages, 5 figures v3: revised and extended version; sec. III and Appendix B were largely modified, abstract and conclusions have been updated, minor text and graphical improvements

R2 v1 2026-06-22T16:32:39.198Z