In this paper we theoretically study how structural disorder in coupled semiconductor heterostructures influences single-particle scattering events that would otherwise be forbidden by symmetry. We extend the model of V. Savona to describe Rayleigh scattering in coupled planar microcavity structures, and answer the question, whether effective filter theories can be ruled out. They can.
We experimentally analyze Rayleigh scattering in coupled planar microcavities. We show that the correlations of the disorder in the two cavities lead to inter-branch scattering of polaritons, that would otherwise be forbidden by symmetry. These longitudinal correlations can be inferred from the strength of the inter-branch scattering.
By calculating all terms of the high-density expansion of the euclidean random matrix theory (up to second-order in the inverse density) for the vibrational spectrum of a topologically disordered system we show that the low-frequency behavior of the self energy is given by $Sigma(k,z)propto k^2z^{d/2}$ and not $Sigma(k,z)propto k^2z^{(d-2)/2}$, as claimed previously. This implies the presence of Rayleigh scattering and long-time tails of the velocity autocorrelation function of the analogous diffusion problem of the form $Z(t)propto t^{(d+2)/2}$.
We calculate the intensity of the polariton mediated inelastic light scattering in semiconductor microcavities. We treat the exciton-photon coupling nonperturbatively and incorporate lifetime effects in both excitons and photons, and a coupling of the photons to the electron-hole continuum. Taking the matrix elements as fitting parameters, the results are in excellent agreement with measured Raman intensities due to optical phonons resonant with the upper polariton branches in II-VI microcavities with embedded CdTe quantum wells.
The Raman response of the metallic glass Ni$_{67}$Zr$_{33}$ is measured as a function of polarization and temperature and analyzed theoretically. Unexpectedly, the intensity in the range up to 300wn increases upon cooling, which is counterintuitive when the response originates from vibrations alone as in insulators. The increase finds a natural explanation if the conduction electrons are assumed to scatter on localized vibrations with a scattering probability proportional to the Debye-Waller factor. None of our assumptions is material specific, and the results are expected to be relevant for disordered systems in general.
We investigate a many-body localization transition based on a Boltzmann transport theory. Introducing weak localization corrections into a Boltzmann equation, Hershfield and Ambegaokar re-derived the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient [Phys. Rev. B {bf 34}, 2147 (1986)]. We generalize this Boltzmann equation framework, introducing electron-electron interactions into the Hershfield-Ambegaokar Boltzmann transport theory based on the study of Zala-Narozhny-Aleiner [Phys. Rev. B {bf 64}, 214204 (2001)]. Here, not only Altshuler-Aronov corrections but also dephasing effects are taken into account. As a result, we obtain a self-consistent equation for the diffusion coefficient in terms of the disorder strength and temperature, which extends the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent equation in the presence of electron correlations. Solving our self-consistent equation numerically, we find a many-body localization insulator-metal transition, where a metallic phase appears from dephasing effects dominantly instead of renormalization effects at high temperatures. Although this mechanism is consistent with that of recent seminal papers [Ann. Phys. (N. Y). {bf 321}, 1126 (2006); Phys. Rev. Lett. {bf 95}, 206603 (2005)], we find that our three-dimensional metal-insulator transition belongs to the first order transition, which differs from the Anderson metal-insulator transition described by the Wolfle-Vollhardt self-consistent theory. We speculate that a bimodal distribution function for the diffusion coefficient is responsible for this first order phase transition.