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# Semiclassical Theory of Coulomb Blockade Peak Heights in Chaotic Quantum Dots

## I Introduction

The Coulomb blockade is a fundamentally classical effect in microstructures—the addition of an electron to an isolated microstructure requires a certain amount of electrostatic energy, the charging energy $`e^2/2C`$ where $`C`$ is the capacitance of the structure. It is the simplest effect of electron charge in microstructures and has been extensively studied with regard to both fundamentals and applications in single electron transistors . One common way to study the Coulomb blockade is by measuring the conductance through a nearly isolated nanoparticle (using tunneling contacts) as a function of a gate voltage which tunes the electrostatic potential of the particle. For most values of the gate voltage, the conductance is very small since the flow of electrons is blocked because the charging energy is not available. However, when the gate voltage is tuned so that states differing by one charge have the same energy, there is a peak in the conductance. The height of this peak is simply the conductance of the two tunnel barriers in series, and the spacing of the peaks is uniform with separation $`e^2/C`$.

For the smallest quantum dots and at low temperature, however, quantum mechanical interference becomes important. Interference causes variation in both the height and spacing of the conductance peaks. For the spacing, single particle quantization and the residual interactions among the electrons are important. For the height, the nature of the wave functions become critical: if the wave function of the state at the chemical potential is poorly coupled to the leads—if it has nodes at the leads—then the conductance peak is small, but if the wave function is well coupled to the leads then the peak is large. In this paper, we restrict our attention to fluctuations in the conductance peak heights and investigate what this tells us about wave functions in quantum dots.

Since dots are generally irregular in shape, the classical dynamics of the electrons is chaotic, and so the characteristics of Coulomb blockade peaks reflect those of wave functions in chaotic systems . Previously, a statistical theory for the peaks was developed by assuming these wave functions to be completely random and uncorrelated with each other. The random matrix theory used was known to be a good description of energy level statistics, and so likely to be reasonable for wave functions. The experimental data  for the distribution of the Coulomb blockade peak heights were found to be in excellent agreement with the predictions of the statistical theory, thus supporting the conjecture of effective “randomness” of the quantum dot wave functions.

A potential problem with the statistical theory was, however, evident in one of the first experiments: there is no correlation between different wave functions in random matrix theory so the statistical theory predicts zero correlation between neighboring conductance peaks, but in one of the experiments  correlation was clearly present in the form of a slowly varying envelope modulating the peak heights. In subsequent years a number of different effects were investigated as candidates to explain this correlation. The simplest is the effect of nonzero temperature: since excitation above the Fermi level is possible, several resonances contribute to each peak and a given resonance contributes to several neighboring conductance peaks, inducing correlation. However, in a detailed study, this was found to be insufficient to account for the observed correlations . Other explanations that were explored include correlation due to spin-paired levels , due to a decrease of the effective level spacing found in density functional calculations , and due to level anticrossings in interacting many-particle systems . While these latter explanations rely on subtle electron-electron interaction effects, here we argue that peak height correlations already arise within an effective single-particle picture of the electrons in the quantum dot. The specific internal dynamics of the dot, even though it is chaotic, modulates the peaks: because all systems have short-time dynamical features, chaos is not equivalent to randomness.

While the statistical theory is “universal” in that it depends on no specific features of the quantum dot at hand, the classical dynamics in the dot is clearly not universal. Thus, while correlations between the conductance peak heights are generally present in quantum dots, the particular correlations in a given dot are not universal but rather involve detailed information about the dot. The simplest information to include is the spatial correlation function of the wave functions—this is very short length dynamical information—and an approach including this effect was given in Ref. . Going beyond this, we use semiclassical techniques to derive a relation between the quantum conductance peak height and the classical periodic orbits in the dot.

The main result is that as a system parameter varies—the magnetic field, for instance, or the number of electrons in the dot (controlled by varying a gate voltage)—the interference around each periodic orbit oscillates between being destructive and constructive. When the interference is constructive for those periodic orbits which come close to the leads used to contact the dot, the wave function is enhanced near the leads, the dot-lead coupling is stronger, and so the conductance is larger. Likewise, destructive interference produces a smaller conductance. The resulting modulation at frequencies corresponding to the periodic orbits can be substantial. Because of dephasing effects, only the short periodic orbits, indeed perhaps only the shortest one, is likely to be significant.

Similar short-time dynamical effects have been noted in other contexts such as atomic and molecular spectra , eigenfunction scarring , magnetotransport in antidot lattices , and tunneling into quantum wells . The periodic orbit modulation that we discuss here is completely omitted in theories in which the wave function is assumed to change randomly as the system changes . Reassuringly, the predicted dynamical modulation is of the type in the original anomalous experiment . More recently, other experimental data has been published which show the effect , but to date no systematic experimental study of this effect has been performed.

In the rest of this paper, we generalize some results that have been previously reported in Ref.  to address asymmetric lead placement and to incorporate temperature dependence. The derivation given here is completely different from the previous one which relied on the methods of Ref. : here our approach in terms of a statistical ansatz for the wave functions yields more results for chaotic systems but misses the results for regular systems that we obtained previously. It has been suggested that asymmetric lead placement would not produce an observable oscillation in the average conductance , but the method employed there only included spatial correlations in the wave functions and not the short-time dynamics which we consider here. In the first section we express the height of the conductance peak in terms of the resonant wave function. The basic ansatz for the distribution of the wave functions, including dynamical effects, is presented in Section III. In Section IV our results for the conductance peak heights are obtained. Comparison to numerical results for the stadium billiard in Section V confirms the adequacy of the semiclassical approach. Finally, we close with a summary and discussion of future directions.

## II The Height of a Conductance Peak in Coulomb Blockade

Our starting point is the connection between the Coulomb blockade peak heights and the widths of the levels in the quantum dot. This connection is well-known ; it allows us to express the conductance in terms of single-particle quantities. We consider a dot close to two leads so that the width, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, of a level comes from tunneling of the electron to either lead. When the mean separation of levels is larger than the temperature $`T`$ which itself is much larger than the mean width, the electrons pass through a single quantized level in the dot, and the conductance peak height is

$`G_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2kT}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_1+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}}`$ (1)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ are the partial decay widths due to the tunneling into a single lead, and spin degrees of freedom are neglected. In particular, when the leads are identical and symmetrically attached to the dot,

$`G_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{h}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4kT}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ (2)
The partial width is related by Fermi’s Golden Rule to the square of the matrix element for tunneling between the lead and the dot, $`M^\mathrm{}d`$. A convenient expression for the matrix element in terms of the lead and dot wave functions, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_d`$, respectively, was derived by Bardeen  and can be expressed as

$`M^\mathrm{}d={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m_{}}}{\displaystyle _S}𝑑𝐫\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{}}(𝐫)\mathrm{\Psi }_d(𝐫)`$ (3)
where the surface $`S`$ is the edge of the quantum dot. The partial width, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, then, depends on the square of the normal derivative of the dot wave function at the edge weighted by the lead wave function. The dot wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_d`$ in (3) is calculated for the effective potential, which accounts for interactions in the dot in the mean-field approximation. For the partial width we then obtain

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha \left[\mathrm{\Psi }_d\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{}}\rho _{\mathrm{}}^{(\alpha )}{\displaystyle _S}d𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathrm{\Psi }_d\left(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}\right){\displaystyle _S}d𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathrm{\Psi }_d\left(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}\right)^{}\left[\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{}}^{(\alpha )}\left(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏}\right)^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{}}^{(\alpha )}\left(𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}\right)\right]`$ (4)
where $`\alpha `$ is the index of the lead, the integer $`\mathrm{}`$ represents different transverse subbands in the lead, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$ is the density of states in the lead for a given subband. To obtain the statistics of the conductance peak heights, we thus need to know the statistical properties of the dot wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_d`$.

## III Wave Functions in the Dot: The Statistical Description

For a single dot, we consider an ensemble of Coulomb blockade peaks—measured either in a narrow interval of gate voltage or obtained by following a single resonance under continuously changing magnetic field. The wave functions associated with the peaks of the conductance will vary—or “fluctuate”—in a way characterized by a distribution $`P[\psi ]`$ which we seek.

It was first conjectured by M. V. Berry that the wave functions of a classically chaotic system fluctuate with certain universal properties and can be characterized as random variables . This is the foundation of the first statistical theory of peak heights . Subsequently, the statistical ansatz made by Berry has been further developed. One direction of refinement is the incorporation of some short length-scale aspects of the real classical dynamics. First, a constraint of an arbitrary correlation function

$$C(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)𝒟\psi P\left[\psi \right]\psi ^{}\left(𝐫_1\right)\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)$$
(5)
was incorporated into the ansatz . By using the correlation function of a random superposition of plane waves, the probability distributions of level-widths and conductance peaks in the case of multi-mode leads to the quantum dot were found . A distribution similar to this ansatz was derived microscopically for disordered systems, a specific kind of chaotic system, using the nonlinear sigma model .

The next step was to constrain the correlation function by the short-time classical dynamics. Using the short-path semiclassical correlation, Srednicki and coworkers  studied correlations in chaotic eigenfunctions at large separations and found that the predicted correlations are in excellent agreement with numerical calculations in chaotic billiards . This semiclassically constrained ansatz for $`P[\psi ]`$ is much harder to justify—certainly no derivation in disordered systems can be made. However, progress towards this goal has been achieved by Kaplan and Heller by treating the nonlinear effects of classical recurrences . In a recent paper by Kaplan  short-time dynamics were incorporated into the general probability distribution of Ref.  to improve the random matrix theory results for the conductance peak height statistics.

Here we use a maximum entropy technique  to derive the specific form of the distribution $`P[\psi ]`$ that we need. An advantage of this approach is that arbitrary constraints can be introduced, as in the case of normalization which we discuss below. We make the following ansatz: the distribution $`P\left[\psi \right]`$ maximizes the information entropy

$$H=𝒟\psi P\left[\psi \right]\mathrm{log}P\left[\psi \right]$$
(6)
within the space allowed by the constraints. Here the measure corresponding to the distribution $`P\left[\psi \right]`$ is defined in the standard way

$$𝒟\psi _d=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{\Pi }_{n=1}^Nd\psi _d\left(𝐫_n\right)$$
(7)
so that the product $`P\left[\psi _d\right]𝒟\psi _d`$ represents the probability that a wave function $`\psi \left(𝐫\right)`$ of the original ensemble is between $`\psi _d\left(𝐫\right)`$ and $`\psi _d\left(𝐫\right)+d\psi _d\left(𝐫\right)`$ for any point $`𝐫`$ inside the dot.

Assuming that the only constraint imposed on the ensemble of wave functions is the correlation function $`C(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$, the maximum of the functional (6) under the constraint (5) is equivalent to the extremum of the functional

$`F\left[\psi \right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\psi \left[P\left[\psi \right]\mathrm{log}P\left[\psi \right]𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2\lambda (𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\left\{\psi ^{}\left(𝐫_1\right)\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)P\left[\psi \right]C(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\right\}\right]}`$ (8)
where the Lagrange multiplier $`\lambda (𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$ can then be determined from Eq. (5). Setting the first variation of $`F\left[\psi \right]`$ equal to zero, we find that $`P[\psi ]`$ is Gaussian. The final result, obtained by substituting Eq. (5) to find $`\lambda (𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$, is

$`P\left[\psi \right]`$ $`=`$ $`A\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2\psi ^{}\left(𝐫_1\right)C^1(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)}\right]`$ (9)
where $`A`$ is the normalization \[independent of $`\psi \left(𝐫\right)`$\], and $`C^1`$ is the functional inverse of the two-point correlation function $`C(𝐫_2,𝐫_1|\epsilon )`$

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_3C^1(𝐫_1,𝐫_3)C(𝐫_3,𝐫_2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \left(𝐫_1𝐫_2\right).`$ (10)
The coefficient $`\beta =1`$ for a system with time-reversal invariance, when the wave functions can be chosen real, and $`\beta =2`$ otherwise.

It has been shown  that in the small-$`\mathrm{}`$ limit for classically chaotic systems, the correlation function $`C(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ can be expressed in terms of the semiclassical approximation to the Green function $`G_{\mathrm{sc}}(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ as

$`C(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi \overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{sc}}}}\mathrm{Im}G_{\mathrm{sc}}(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)+𝒪\left(\mathrm{}^{3/2}\right)`$ (11)
where $`\overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{sc}}\left(\epsilon \right)`$ is the smooth part of the density of states (DOS) in the dot, given by the leading order (Thomas-Fermi) semiclassical approximation to the DOS.

In the semiclassical approximation, the energy-averaged Green function can be expressed in terms of the classical trajectories (labeled by the index $`j`$,

$`G_{\mathrm{sc}}(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ $`=`$ $`G_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi i\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\sqrt{\left|D_j\right|}\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{S_j}{\mathrm{}}}in_j{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\tau _j^2W^2}{2\mathrm{}^2}}\right),`$ (12)
where $`S_j=S_j(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ is the classical action, $`\tau _j`$ is the period, the integer $`n_j`$ is the topological index  of the trajectory $`j`$, and the amplitude $`D_j`$ is

$`D_j`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{det}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{^2S_j(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)}{𝐫_2𝐫_1}& \frac{^2S_j(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)}{\epsilon 𝐫_1}\\ \frac{^2S_j(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)}{\epsilon 𝐫_2}& \frac{^2S_j(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)}{\epsilon ^2}\end{array}\right).`$ (15)
We have specialized to two spatial dimensions and the last exponential in Eq. (12) is due to a Gaussian averaging over an energy window of width $`W`$ described below. The function $`G_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ is the contribution of the non-classical so-called “zero-length” trajectories, those with actions less than or of order $`\mathrm{}`$. Therefore, $`G_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ cannot be obtained using the stationary-phase approximation, but may be evaluated  by replacing the actual propagator $`𝐫_2\left|\mathrm{exp}(iHt/\mathrm{})\right|𝐫_1`$ by its free space analog

$`𝐫_2\left|\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{iHt}{\mathrm{}}}\right)\right|𝐫_1{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐩}{\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\frac{𝐩\left(𝐫_2𝐫_1\right)}{\mathrm{}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{iH(𝐩,𝐫_0)t}{\mathrm{}}\right)}`$ (16)
where $`𝐫_0\left(𝐫_2+𝐫_1\right)/2`$. The corresponding Green function is then

$`G_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐩}{\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\frac{𝐩\left(𝐫_2𝐫_1\right)}{\mathrm{}}\right)\frac{1}{\epsilon H(𝐩,𝐫_0)+i0}}.`$ (17)
Note that because of the short trajectory involved, this part of the Green function varies very smoothly as a function of energy. The smooth part of the correlation function which results is

$`C_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{sc}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐩}{\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^2}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{𝐩\left(𝐫_2𝐫_1\right)}{\mathrm{}}\right)\delta \left(\epsilon H(𝐩,𝐫_0)\right)},`$ (18)
and so $`C_0(𝐫_2,𝐫_1)J_0\left(p\left|𝐫_2𝐫_1\right|/\mathrm{}\right)`$. This smooth part of the correlation function is rather local in that it decays monotonically with separation. Thus, having fully specified the correlation function we wish to use, we finally obtain

$`P\left(\psi _d|\epsilon \right)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2\psi ^{}\left(𝐫_1\right)G_{\mathrm{sc}}^1(𝐫_2,𝐫_1|\epsilon )\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)}\right].`$ (19)
A few remarks are required about the width of the energy window $`W`$. In the semiclassical limit there arises an increasingly broad separation between the short-time dynamics that give rise to system specific behavior and the long orbits that are responsible for generating universal statistical fluctuations . The width $`W`$ is chosen such that the short periodic orbits are included in the sum essentially undamped whereas the long orbits are eliminated since their contributions are already accounted for in the statistical ansatz. For the rest of this paper, we will eliminate the explicit dependence on $`W`$ and the sum is understood to contain only the linear dynamics.

The general ensemble defined by the distribution (9) has, however, certain limitations. Strictly speaking, in its general form this ensemble is only suitable for calculations of those observables which can be represented in terms of only two-point products $`\psi ^{}\left(𝐫_1\right)\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)`$. The reason for this problem is as follows: instead of the proper normalization of each member of the ensemble,

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫\left|\psi \left(𝐫\right)\right|^2}`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (20)
the normalization of the wave functions is satisfied only on average,

$`{\displaystyle 𝒟\psi \left(𝐫\right)P\left[\psi \left(𝐫\right)\right]𝑑𝐫\left|\psi \left(𝐫\right)\right|^2}`$ $`=`$ $`1.`$ (21)
As a result, the higher order moments, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n𝑑𝐫_1\mathrm{}𝑑𝐫_n\left|\psi \left(𝐫_1\right)\right|^2\mathrm{}\left|\psi \left(𝐫_n\right)\right|^2_\psi `$, of the distribution are different from unity. Therefore, in its general from, the ensemble defined by (9) is not suitable for calculations which are sensitive to the $`n>1`$ moments of the distribution $`P\left[\psi \right]`$, such as for the description of the residual interactions in quantum dots .

The method developed in this section yields a straightforward way to generalize the distribution (9) to properly account for the higher moments. For example, adding an additional constraint

$`{\displaystyle 𝒟\psi P\left[\psi \right]𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2\left|\psi \left(𝐫_1\right)\right|^2\left|\psi \left(𝐫_2\right)\right|^2}`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (22)
to the variational problem (6) will yield a generalization of the distribution (19) which properly accounts for the moment $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$.

Note in contrast that the errors in the higher moments, $`n>1`$, produced by the semiclassical distribution (19) are of higher order in $`\mathrm{}`$, $`\delta _n𝒪\left(\mathrm{}^2\right)`$, than the terms taken into account in $`G_{\mathrm{sc}}`$ . As long as these higher-order corrections are not relevant for the quantity under consideration, one can generally use the semiclassical distribution (19).

## IV Peak Heights Distribution

Since the Coulomb blockade peak heights are uniquely determined by the corresponding dot wave functions $`\psi _d`$, the peak heights distribution function $`P\left(G\right)`$ is given by

$`P\left(G\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\psi _dP\left(\psi _d\right)\delta \left(GG_{\mathrm{peak}}\left[\psi _d\right]\right)}`$ (23)
where $`G_{\mathrm{peak}}\left[\psi \right]`$ is determined by Eqs. (1), (2), and (4). The width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ depends only on the wave function near the boundary of the quantum dot, as follows from Eq. (4). If the function $`P_S\left(\overline{\psi }\right)`$ represents the distribution of the wave functions in a narrow strip $`S`$ along the boundary of the quantum dot, so that

$`\psi \left(𝐫\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\overline{\psi }\left(𝐫\right),& 𝐫S\\ \widehat{\psi }\left(𝐫\right),& 𝐫S\end{array},`$ (26)
then the conductance distribution is

$`P\left(G\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\overline{\psi }P_S\left[\overline{\psi }|\epsilon \right]\delta \left(GG_{\mathrm{peak}}\left[\overline{\psi }\right]\right)}.`$ (27)
The “edge” distribution $`P_S`$ can be obtained from the general distribution $`P\left[\psi \right]`$ by integrating out the values of $`\widehat{\psi }`$,

$`P_S\left[\overline{\psi }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝒟\widehat{\psi }P\left[\psi \{\overline{\psi },\widehat{\psi }\}\right]}.`$ (28)
As the distribution $`P\left[\psi \right]`$ is Gaussian, the resulting functional integral can be calculated exactly, yielding

$`P_S\left[\overline{\psi }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`A_S\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle _S}𝑑𝐪_1{\displaystyle _S}𝑑𝐪_2\overline{\psi }^{}\left(𝐪_1\right)\overline{K}(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)\overline{\psi }\left(𝐪_2\right)\right]`$ (29)
where

$`\overline{K}(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)`$ $`=`$ $`C^1(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Omega }\backslash S}}𝑑𝐪_3{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{\Omega }\backslash S}}𝑑𝐪_4C^1(𝐪_1,𝐪_3)C(𝐪_3,𝐪_4)C^1(𝐪_4,𝐪_2)`$ (30)
and $`A_S`$ is the new normalization constant. The spatial integrals are over the part of the total space $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ which is orthogonal to the edge $`S`$, denoted $`\mathrm{\Omega }\backslash S`$.

As follows from Eqs. (11)-(12), the “non-diagonal” part of the correlation function is of a higher order in $`\mathrm{}`$, $`𝒪(\sqrt{\mathrm{}})`$, compared to the “diagonal” part, $`C_0𝒪(1)`$. The second term in Eq. (30) involves the correlation functions $`C(𝐪_1,𝐪_3)`$ and $`C(𝐪_4,𝐪_2)`$, taken between the points of the different parts of the dot, the edge strip $`S`$ for one coordinate and the internal region $`\mathrm{\Omega }\backslash S`$ for the other. It is therefore of higher order in $`\mathrm{}`$, $`𝒪(\mathrm{})`$, than the first contribution, $`C^1(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)`$ $`\delta (𝐪_2𝐪_1)𝒪(1)+𝒪(\sqrt{\mathrm{}})`$. Keeping such higher-order terms is not consistent with the leading-order semiclassical approximation we used for $`C(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)`$. We therefore obtain

$`P_S\left[\overline{\psi }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`A_S\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}{\displaystyle _S}𝑑𝐪_1{\displaystyle _S}𝑑𝐪_2\overline{\psi }^{}\left(𝐪_1\right)C^1(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)\overline{\psi }\left(𝐪_2\right)\right].`$ (31)
An alternative to the argument given here proceeds by noting that integrating out $`\widehat{\psi }`$ should yield a Gaussian in $`\overline{\psi }`$, and that this Gaussian, by construction of the ensemble, must reproduce the correct two point correlation function $`C(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)`$. This alternative argument  immediately yields the functional form (31).

When the closed dot is defined by the Dirichlet boundary conditions, the wave function in the narrow strip $`S`$ near the “edge” can be represented as

$`\overline{\psi }`$ $`=`$ $`z\phi \left(y\right)`$ (32)
where $`y`$ is the coordinate along the boundary of the dot and $`z`$ is in the direction of the normal. In this limit, the correlation function is

$`C(𝐪_1,𝐪_2)`$ $`=`$ $`z_2z_1_nC(y_1,y_2)`$ (33)
where $`_nC(y_1,y_2)`$ is defined as the correlation function of the normal derivatives of the wave function at the boundary of the dot and can be obtained as

$`_nC(y_2,y_1)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi \overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{sc}}}}\mathrm{Im}_nG_{\mathrm{sc}}(y_2,y_1)+𝒪\left(\mathrm{}^{\left(d+1\right)/2}\right)`$ (34)
where

$`_nG(y_2,y_1|\epsilon )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{_n\psi _m^{}(y_2,0)_n\psi _m(y_1,0)}{\epsilon _m\epsilon +i0}}.`$ (35)
The semiclassical approximation $`_nG_{\mathrm{sc}}`$ for the normal derivative Green function was derived in Ref. :

$`_nG_{\mathrm{sc}}(y_2,y_1)`$ $`=`$ $`_nG_0(y_2,y_1)`$ (36)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{i\mathrm{}^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi i\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\left[𝐩_j\left(y_1\right)\right]_n\left[𝐩_j\left(y_2\right)\right]_n\sqrt{\left|D_j\right|}\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_j}{\mathrm{}}}\overline{n}_j{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}\right)`$ (37)
where $`\overline{n}_j`$ and $`[𝐩_j]_n`$ are, respectively, the Maslov indexes  and the normal component of the classical momentum of the trajectory $`j`$.

In order to connect the dot wave functions to the lead, let $`\{\varphi _m\left(y\right)\}`$ be the complete orthogonal set of the wave functions corresponding to the transverse potential of the lead. Using this basis, we represent the function $`\phi \left(y\right)`$ as

$`\phi \left(y\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}a_m\varphi _m\left(yy_{\mathrm{}}\right)`$ (38)
where $`y_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the contact point of the lead. Assuming that the tunneling between the lead and the dot is dominated by the contribution of the lowest transverse subband of the lead and using (4) for the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$, we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`2\pi \rho _0^{(\alpha )}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m_{}}}\right)^2\left|{\displaystyle 𝑑y\varphi _0\left(y\right)\underset{m}{}a_m\varphi _m\left(y\right)}\right|^2={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}\rho _0^{(\alpha )}\left|a_0\right|^2`$ (39)
where $`\rho _0^{(\alpha )}`$ is the density of states in the lead corresponding to the lowest transverse subband. For an arbitrary moment of the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha ^m`$ we therefore find

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha ^m`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑a_0\left[\frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}\rho _0^{(\alpha )}\right]^m\left|a_0\right|^{2m}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left|a_0\right|^2𝑑y_1𝑑y_2\varphi _0\left(y_1\right)\frac{1}{_nC(y_1,y_2)}\varphi _0\left(y_2\right)\right]}.`$ (40)
To give explicit expressions for the distribution of level widths and conductance, we specialize to the time-reversal symmetric case ($`\beta =1`$, GOE) for the rest of this paper; the case when time-reversal symmetry is broken by a magnetic field ($`\beta =2`$, GUE) can be treated in an analogous way. In the presence of time-reversal symmetry, the wave functions, and hence the coefficient $`a_0`$, can be chosen real, yielding

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^m`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^m\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }/2\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}}`$ (41)
where

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0^{(\alpha )}}{\overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{sc}}}}\left({\displaystyle 𝑑y_1𝑑y_2\varphi _0\left(y_1\right)\frac{1}{\mathrm{Im}\left[_nG_{\mathrm{sc}}(y_2,y_1|\epsilon )\right]}\varphi _0\left(y_2\right)}\right)^1.`$ (42)
Thus the partial width is characterized by the Porter-Thomas distribution

$`P\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}}\right)`$ (43)
with the slowly varying local average $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left(\epsilon \right)`$. This explicit result for the distribution of level widths is the main result of this section.

The conductance distribution $`P\left(G\right)`$ can now be simply derived in two limiting cases: (i) when the leads are placed symmetrically, so that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ \[cf. Eq. (2)\], and (ii) when one of the partial widths is substantially smaller than the other, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. In both these cases $`G\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ \[as follows from Eq. (1)\], and the conductance distribution is also Porter-Thomas. The “local average” conductance, $`\overline{G}`$, is given by

$`\overline{G}\left(\epsilon \right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\pi }{2\gamma hkT}}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left(\epsilon \right)`$ (44)
where the “local average” width $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left(\epsilon \right)`$ is defined by Eq. (42), and $`\gamma =1`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, while $`\gamma =2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$.

In the general case, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_2𝒪\left(1\right)`$ but not identical, however, an exact calculation of the conductance distribution is complicated by the essentially nonlinear dependence of the conductance on the partial widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. In order to calculate the actual conductance, we choose the area $`S`$ as the composition of two narrow strips, $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$, near each of the leads. Using the transverse lead wave functions as the basis in each of the two strips,

$`\overline{\psi }(y,z)`$ $`=`$ $`z\left[{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}a_m^{(1)}\varphi _m^{(1)}\left(yy_{\mathrm{}}^{(1)}\right)+{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}a_m^{(2)}\varphi _m^{(2)}\left(yy_{\mathrm{}}^{(2)}\right)\right]`$ (45)
where the coordinates $`y_{\mathrm{}}^{(1)}`$ and $`y_{\mathrm{}}^{(2)}`$ represent the “contact points” of the leads. The partial widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ are then given by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}\rho _0^{(1)}\left|a_0^{(1)}\right|^2`$ (46)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}\rho _0^{(2)}\left|a_0^{(2)}\right|^2.`$ (47)
Assuming equal density of states in the leads, $`\rho _0^{(1)}(\epsilon )=\rho _0^{(2)}(\epsilon )`$, for the conductance $`G`$ we obtain

$`G`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^2\mathrm{}^3}{m_{}^2kT}}\rho _0{\displaystyle \frac{|a_0^{(1)}|^2|a_0^{(2)}|^2}{|a_0^{(1)}|^2+|a_0^{(2)}|^2}}.`$ (48)
An arbitrary $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ moment of the conductance $`G`$, $`G^n`$, can now be calculated by integrating over the coefficients $`\{a_m\}`$ for $`m0`$, yielding

$`G^n`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑a_0^{(1)}𝑑a_0^{(2)}\left[\frac{\left|a_0^{(1)}\right|^2\left|a_0^{(2)}\right|^2}{\left|a_0^{(1)}\right|^2+\left|a_0^{(2)}\right|^2}\right]^n\mathrm{exp}\left[a_0^{(1)}𝒜_{11}a_0^{(1)}a_0^{(2)}𝒜_{22}a_0^{(2)}2a_{0}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}𝒜_{12}a_0^{(2)}\right]}`$ (49)
where the matrix $`𝒜`$ is

$`𝒜_{\alpha \beta }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑y_1𝑑y_2\varphi _0\left(y_1y_{\mathrm{}}^{(\alpha )}\right)_nC^1(y_1,y_2)\varphi _0\left(y_2y_{\mathrm{}}^{(\beta )}\right)}.`$ (50)
Note that the definition (50) implies that the diagonal elements of the matrix $`𝒜`$ are proportional to the corresponding partial widths, $`𝒜_{11}\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$, $`𝒜_{22}\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. A straightforward evaluation of the integrals in Eq. (49) using the substitution

$$x=\left[a_0^{(1)}\right]^2\frac{2m_{}^2kTG}{\pi e^2\mathrm{}^3\rho _0}$$
(51)
yields

$`G^n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑GG^nP\left(G\right)}`$ (52)
where the distribution is

$`P\left(G\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{G}}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}𝒜G\right)`$ (53)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{G+x}{x^{3/2}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝒜_{11}x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝒜_{22}{\displaystyle \frac{G^2}{x}}\right]\mathrm{cosh}\left[𝒜_{12}G\left(\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{x}{G}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{G}{x}}\right)\right].`$ (54)
Note that it is only the term involving $`𝒜_{12}`$ which makes the remaining integral non-Gaussian and so hard to perform. However, this term is semiclassically small: from Eq. (50) it follows that the leading semiclassical term in the off-diagonal part of the matrix $`𝒜`$ is of next order in $`\mathrm{}`$ compared to the leading diagonal terms. The $`x`$-integral in Eq. (54) is therefore dominated by the interval between $`1/\left(G𝒜_{11}\right)`$ and $`G𝒜_{22}`$, where the off-diagonal matrix element $`𝒜`$ makes only a small correction quadratic in $`𝒜_{12}`$. Such a correction corresponds, however, to higher-order terms in $`\mathrm{}`$. Corrections of this order were already neglected in the original semiclassical expansion of the Green function, and so to be consistent we discard all effects of the off-diagonal matrix element $`𝒜_{12}`$ here. The integral in Eq. (54) can now be easily performed.

The semiclassical approximation to the conductance distribution is, then, simply a Porter-Thomas distribution, even in the general case:

$`P\left(G\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\overline{G}}}\right)^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{G}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{G}{2\overline{G}}}\right],`$ (55)
where the “local average” conductance $`\overline{G}`$ is

$`\overline{G}`$ $``$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\overline{G}_1}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\overline{G}_2}}}\right]^2,`$ (56)
and the “partial conductance” $`G_\alpha `$ is related to the partial width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$ via the standard relation

$`G_\alpha `$ $``$ $`(\pi e^2/2hkT)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha .`$ (57)
As the semiclassical Green function, $`G_{\mathrm{sc}}`$, and, consequently, the correlator, $`_nC`$, can be expressed as a sum of the contributions of “zero-length” and longer classical trajectories, similar decompositions hold for the average partial width and average partial conductance:

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\alpha ^0+\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\alpha ^{\mathrm{osc}}`$ (58)
$`\overline{G}_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{G}_\alpha ^0+\overline{G}_\alpha ^{\mathrm{osc}}`$ (59)
where the “oscillatory” parts, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{\mathrm{osc}}`$ and $`\overline{G}^{\mathrm{osc}}`$, depend on the longer classical trajectories and are of next order in $`\mathrm{}`$ compared to the smooth contributions, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^0`$ and $`\overline{G}^0`$ which are the zero-length contributions. A consistent semiclassical approximation, as in Eq. (12), then requires expanding $`\overline{G}`$ and keeping only the linear terms in the oscillatory contribution. We thus obtain

$`\overline{G}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{G}_1^0\overline{G}_2^0}{\overline{G}_1^0+\overline{G}_2^0+2\sqrt{\overline{G}_1^0\overline{G}_2^0}}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\sqrt{\overline{G}_1^0/\overline{G}_2^0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{G}_1^{\mathrm{osc}}}{\overline{G}_1^0}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\sqrt{\overline{G}_2^0/\overline{G}_1^0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{G}_2^{\mathrm{osc}}}{\overline{G}_2^0}}\right].`$ (60)
We now proceed to the semiclassical calculation of the “local average” partial width $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. The defining equation (42) involves the functional inverse of the Green function, which is a hard object to calculate. Instead, we will use the original definition (4), which for the local average partial width yields

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}^4}{m_{}^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}\rho _0^{(\alpha )}{\displaystyle 𝑑y_1𝑑y_2\varphi _\alpha \left(y_1y_{\mathrm{}}\right)\varphi _\alpha \left(y_2y_{\mathrm{}}\right)^{}_nC(y_1,y_2)}`$ (61)
where the correlation function of the normal derivatives of the dot wave functions $`_nC(y_1,y_2)`$ is related to the semiclassical Green function by Eq. (34).

If we now use some information about the lead wave functions, we can obtain an explicit expression for the average width $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ in terms of the classical dynamics in the dot. When, as we assumed above, the tunneling from the lead to the dot is dominated by the lowest transverse energy subband in the constriction between the lead and the dot, the transverse potential in the tunneling region can be taken quadratic: $`U_{\mathrm{}}\kappa \left(yy_{\mathrm{}}\right)^2`$. In this case, the transverse dependence of the lead wave function is simply a harmonic oscillator wave function, so that at the edge of the dot $`\varphi _0c_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{exp}[(yy_{\mathrm{}})^2/2a_{\mathrm{eff}}^2]`$, where $`y_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the center of the lead and constriction, and the effective width is $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}}/\sqrt[4]{2\kappa m^{}}`$. While the exact form of the lead wave function is not crucial, the $`\mathrm{}`$-dependence of the width is important for the semiclassical argument which follows; note that $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}\sqrt{\mathrm{}}`$ does not depend on a particular transverse potential.

Using this information about $`\varphi _0`$ in the expression for the diagonal matrix elements $`𝒜_{11}`$, $`𝒜_{22}`$, we see that the lead wave function restricts the integration to a semiclassically narrow region of width $`a_{\mathrm{eff}}\sqrt{\mathrm{}}`$. This allows one to express the contribution of the open trajectories entering the Green function in terms of an expansion near their closed neighbors:

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0+{\displaystyle \frac{16}{m^{}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑y𝑑p_yf_W(y,p_y)\underset{\alpha }{}\sqrt{\frac{(p_i^\alpha )_n(p_f^\alpha )_n}{m_{11}^\alpha +m_{22}^\alpha +2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}\frac{2m_{12}^\alpha }{m_{11}^\alpha +m_{22}^\alpha +2}\left(p_y\overline{p}_y^\alpha \right)^2\right]}`$ (62)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[i{\displaystyle \frac{S_\alpha (y,0;y,0;\epsilon )}{\mathrm{}}}\right]`$ (63)
where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0`$ is the monotonic part of the resonance width, $`(p_i)_n`$ and $`(p_f)_n`$ are the normal components of the initial and the final momenta of the closed orbit $`\alpha `$, the momentum $`\overline{𝐩}\left(𝐩_i+𝐩_f\right)/2`$, the $`2\times 2`$ monodromy matrix $`M_\alpha (m_{ij}^\alpha )`$ is defined via the linearization of the Poincaré map near the closed orbit $`\alpha `$ , and calculated at the contact point near the lead. We have also introduced in Eq. (63) the Wigner transform $`f_W^e`$ of the lead wave function

$`f_W^e(y,p_y)h^1{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Delta }y\varphi _0(y\mathrm{\Delta }y/2,0)\varphi _0^{}(y+\mathrm{\Delta }y/2,0)\mathrm{exp}\left(ip_y\mathrm{\Delta }y/\mathrm{}\right)}`$ (64)
which describes the distribution in transverse position and momentum of electrons tunneling into the dot.

In leading order in the distance between the contact point $`y`$ of the closed orbit $`\alpha `$, and the center of the lead $`y_{\mathrm{}}`$, the action of the closed orbit $`S_\alpha `$ scales linearly:

$`S_\alpha (y,0;y,0)S(y_{\mathrm{}},0;y_{\mathrm{}},0)+\mathrm{\Delta }p_y^\alpha \left(yy_{\mathrm{}}\right)`$ (65)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_y`$ is the change of transverse momentum after the traversal of the closed orbit. Assuming e.g. a Gaussian form of the lead wave function, the contribution of each of these closed orbits is suppressed by a factor exponentially small in $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_y^2`$. This suppression is the effect of the mismatch of the closed orbit (momentum) with the distribution of transverse momentum at the lead, which is centered at zero with width $`\delta p_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{}/a_{\mathrm{eff}}\sqrt{\mathrm{}}`$ for the lowest subband. Therefore, only closed orbits with semiclassically small momentum change $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ contribute to the width. This in turn implies that the closed orbit is located semiclassically close (within a distance $`\sqrt{\mathrm{}}`$) to a periodic orbit for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }p0`$. Using this proximity to a periodic orbit we can re-express the actions and momenta of the injection orbits in terms of the properties of their periodic neighbors (labeled by the index $`\mu `$) as follows:

$`S_\alpha (y,0;y,0)`$ $``$ $`S_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Tr}\left[M_\mu \right]2}{2m_{12}^\mu }}\left(yy_\mu \right)^2,`$ (66)
$`\overline{p}_y^\alpha `$ $``$ $`p_y^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{m_{11}^\mu m_{22}^\mu }{2m_{12}^\mu }}\left(yy_\mu \right)`$ (67)
Substitution of (66) and (67) into Eq. (63) and integration over $`y`$ yields

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0+{\displaystyle \underset{\mu :\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{o}.}{}}A_\mu \mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_\mu }{\mathrm{}}}+\varphi _\mu \right)`$ (68)
where the monotonic part is

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_0={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{2}}c_{\mathrm{}}^2a_{\mathrm{eff}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{m^{}}}e^\zeta \left[I_0\left(\zeta \right)+I_1\left(\zeta \right)\right],\zeta ={\displaystyle \frac{p^2a_{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{2\mathrm{}^2}},`$ (69)
the amplitude is

$`A_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`4\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}c_{\mathrm{}}^2p_z^\mu }{m^{}}}\left[\mathrm{Tr}^2\left[M_\mu \right]\left(1+\sigma _+^2\right)\left(1+\sigma _{}^2\right)\right]^{1/4}`$ (70)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _+^2\overline{p}^2}{\left(1+\sigma _+^2\right)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _{}^2\overline{y}^2}{\left(1+\sigma _{}^2\right)}}\right)`$ (71)
with

$`\sigma _\pm `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[\overline{m}_{12}\overline{m}_{21}\pm \sqrt{\left(\overline{m}_{22}\overline{m}_{11}\right)^2+\left(\overline{m}_{21}+\overline{m}_{12}\right)^2}\right]`$ (72)
$`\overline{m}_{ij}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2m_{ij}^\mu }{\mathrm{Tr}\left[M_\mu \right]+2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_{\mathrm{eff}}^2}{\mathrm{}}}\right)^{\frac{ji}{2}}`$ (73)
$`\theta `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\overline{m}_{22}\overline{m}_{11}}{\overline{m}_{21}+\overline{m}_{12}}}\right)`$ (74)
$`\overline{y}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta \left(y_\mu y_{\mathrm{}}\right)/a_{\mathrm{eff}}+\mathrm{sin}\theta p_y^\mu a_{\mathrm{eff}}/\mathrm{}`$ (75)
$`\overline{p}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta p_y^\mu a_{\mathrm{eff}}/\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(y_\mu y_{\mathrm{}}\right)/a_{\mathrm{eff}},`$ (76)
and $`\varphi _\mu `$ is a slowly varying phase. Here $`I_n`$ is the Bessel function of complex argument, $`p`$ is the magnitude of the electron momentum, $`𝐩^\mu `$ is the electron momentum for the periodic orbit $`\mu `$ at the bounce point (turning point), $`y_\mu `$ is the bounce point coordinate, $`S_\mu `$ is the action of the periodic orbit, and $`M_\mu \left(m_{ij}^\mu \right)`$ is the corresponding monodromy matrix. Note the sharp suppression of the oscillatory effects in Eq. (71) if the periodic orbit does not match up to the lead wave function in both position and momentum space. The mismatch is characterized by $`\overline{y}`$ and $`\overline{p}`$; the most favorable case is that of a perpendicular periodic orbit hitting the edge of the dot right at the center of the lead, $`p_y^\mu =0`$ and $`y_\mu =y_{\mathrm{}}`$ so that $`\overline{y}=\overline{p}=0`$.

An explicit expression for the average conductance follows from the relation between the partial width and the partial conductance Eq. (57). Using Eq. (60), we see that $`\overline{G}`$ can be written in the form

$`\overline{G}=\overline{G}_0+{\displaystyle \underset{\mu :\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{o}.}{}}B_\mu \mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_\mu }{\mathrm{}}}+\varphi _\mu \right)`$ (77)
where $`B_\mu `$ is simply related to $`A_\mu `$, $`\overline{G}_1^0`$, and $`\overline{G}_2^0`$. This together with Eq. (55) defines both the average conductance and its fluctuations.

Further characterization of the peak fluctuations can be obtained from the peak-to-peak correlation function: this is a particularly interesting quantity because of the correlations sometimes observed experimentally , as discussed in the Introduction. A natural measure of the statistics of nearby peaks is given by $`\delta G\left(E_m\right)G\left(E_m\right)G\left(E_n\right)_n`$ in terms of which the correlation function is

$`\mathrm{Corr}_m[\delta G,\delta G]=\delta G\left(E_{n+m}\right)\delta G\left(E_n\right)_n/[\delta G(E_n)]^2_n.`$ (78)
Substituting the conductance distribution (55) into (78), we obtain

$`\mathrm{Corr}_m`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{m,0}+\left(1\delta _{m,0}\right)\times {\displaystyle \frac{_\mu B_\mu ^2\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\tau _\mu \mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{}}m\right)}{4\overline{G}_0^2+3_\mu B_\mu ^2}}.`$ (79)
Throughout this paper we have concentrated on energy (or equivalently peak number) as the tuning parameter causing the peak height variation. This is just an example: exactly analogous considerations apply to any parameter causing changes in the wave functions of the quantum dot. In particular, similar oscillatory behavior is expected in the height of a given peak as a function of magnetic field, often the most experimentally accessible parameter. As the field varies, the change in the action of a periodic orbit is proportional to the (directed) area that it encloses. Thus, the peak heights should exhibit an oscillatory envelope whose frequencies are proportional to the areas of the periodic orbits.

## V Comparison with numerics and experiment

Since one of the main theoretical results of the present paper concerns the periodic modulation of the Coulomb blockade peak heights, it is natural to consider the Fourier power spectrum of $`G_{\mathrm{peak}}(k)`$. In Fig. 1 we present a comparison of the numerical and semiclassical power spectra, calculated for a chaotic (stadium) dot, for three different placements of the leads. Previously, we reported the case for leads placed symmetrically as in the upper plot of Fig. 1 for $`kR=70`$. The exact conductance peaks are obtained numerically from Eq. (1) with the eigenstates being constructed using the the method of Ref. . To observe the variation in peak height, we vary the energy, or equivalently the wavevector $`k=p/\mathrm{}`$, which changes the number of electrons on the dot as more levels are filled. The data clearly demonstrate that the power spectrum has well-defined peaks corresponding to periodic orbits. The numerical results for the symmetric leads show excellent agreement with the semiclassical prediction.

The situation is however different for asymmetrically positioned leads when there is no single short periodic orbit connecting both leads. In this case, only the main peak corresponding to the first repetition of the relevant periodic orbits, the “diameter” and the $`V`$-shaped orbit, is adequately reproduced. The higher-frequency behavior, however, is substantially different from the semiclassical prediction. We attribute this difference to the non-linear mixing of the oscillations of different partial widths, neglected in our derivation of Eq. (60). The pronounced peak at the difference length $`L_VL_D`$, where $`L_V`$ and $`L_D`$ correspondingly represent the lengths of the $`V`$-shaped and diameter orbits, strongly indicates that, although semiclassically small, the mixing effects of higher order terms in Eq. (56) can be significant in the experimentally relevant parameter range. We numerically verified that the sum and difference lengths can be partially obtained by Eq. (56).

As follows from Eq. (68), the oscillatory component of the “local average” conductance and the height of the corresponding peak in the power spectrum depends nontrivially on the position and the width of the lead. This dependence is illustrated in Fig. 2, where we plot the amplitude of the “diameter” orbit contribution to the conductance as a function of $`ka_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ extracted from numerical length spectrum and the corresponding semiclassical prediction.

In Fig. 3 we compare the semiclassical correlation function with numerical data for the stadium dot. The oscillatory behavior for large separations reflects the peak in the corresponding power spectrum in Fig. 1 and is in agreement with the semiclassical result. The positive correlation for nearest neighbors is also in agreement with the semiclassical theory, demonstrating the influence of dynamics even in this apparently non-semiclassical regime.

When $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the major source of correlations between neighboring peaks is the joint contribution of several resonances to the same conductance peak. In this regime the “nearest-neighbor” correlator is $`\mathrm{Corr}_{m=1}1`$, and the dynamical effect accounts for only a small correction to the correlation function. However, for low temperature $`T\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the correlations due to temperature are exponentially suppressed. In this regime, as illustrated in Fig. 4, the correlations induced by dynamical modulation dominate, and they account for the experimentally observed enhancement of correlations at low temperatures. For finite temperature each resonance is weighted by combinations of Fermi-Dirac functions and occupation numbers . The occupation numbers used in Fig. 4 were obtained by employing a recursion relation ; see Appendix A. As the temperature increases more resonances contribute to a single conductance peak, and thus dampening the effects of the longer orbits.

In Fig. 5 we present the results of the calculation of the probability distribution of $`G_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ for a stadium quantum dot for both the “symmetric” and “asymmetric” placement of the leads. For comparison, we show both the actual distribution, Eqs. (55) (60), and the standard Porter-Thomas result without any account of the modulation of the average conductance: $`P(G_{\mathrm{peak}})=\sqrt{4/\pi G_{\mathrm{peak}}}\mathrm{exp}(G_{\mathrm{peak}})`$. As the individual peak-height distribution is essentially a local measure, it is not strongly sensitive to the correlations, and both the standard and the dynamical theories predict nearly the same result, and both are consistent with numerical calculation. This explains why no dynamical effect was observed in the experimental peak-height probability distribution.

In contrast, the periodic modulation of the peak heights has been observed in several recent experiments. The clearest observation is in Ref. : the data in their Fig. 1 show modulated peak heights as a function of the number of electrons in the dot. In their trace of 90 peaks, approximately six oscillations are visible, yielding a period of $`15`$ peaks. In our treatment, this period is related to the period of fundamental oscillation in Eq. (68). A variation in action $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_\mu `$ can arise from changes in either or both the Fermi momentum and the dynamics, i.e. the lengths of the orbits. If only the momentum varies, then the fundamental period is given by $`\left(\frac{1}{h}\frac{S_\mu }{\epsilon }\right)^1h/\tau _\mu `$ where $`\tau _\mu `$ is the period of the relevant orbit, and the ratio of this to the level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ gives the period of the peak heights. In the billiard approximation, $`\tau _\mu L_\mu /v_F`$, where $`L_\mu `$ is the length of the periodic orbit and $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity, which can be calculated from the experimental density. Using the appropriate spin-resolved level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }10`$ $`\mu `$eV (which is half of the spin-full value from the measurements in Ref. ), the experimental period implies $`L_\mu 4.5\mu m`$. This value is inconsistent with the period given by the shortest periodic orbit contacting the leads —the orbit from the lead to the “pin” gate and back whose length we estimate to be $`0.9\mu `$m.

Changes in the dynamics should also be considered. By examining the configuration of the dot in the insert of Fig. 1 of Ref. , the gate voltage appears to be situated on the shortest periodic orbit of each lead. By making the gate voltage more negative the electron will have a shorter path and thus contribute to the change of the action in Eq. (68). If the Fermi energy of the system remains constant, then we can calculate a plausible range for the period using two extreme simplified models for the deformation of the boundary. First, the gate voltage is modeled as a small local semicircular deformation. Equating the area of the semicircle to the number of peaks times the change of area caused by adding one electron on the dot without a change in the Fermi energy, we estimate the period to be $`3`$ peaks independent of the Fermi energy. The other extreme is considering the entire side to move uniformly. The same procedure yields a period proportional to the square root of the number of electrons on the dot. Assuming that the typical dot in these experiments has 100 electrons , we obtain a period of $`13`$ peaks. Thus, the experimental result of a period of 15 peaks cannot be obtained solely by the orbit length change, but must also include a change due to the difference in Fermi energies of successive peaks. A more detailed model of the gate voltage is necessary in order to make a better prediction of the oscillation period.

A similar approach to the peak modulation as a function of magnetic field is also in agreement with the experimental results, where a quasi-periodic modulation of the peak heights was observed with the period $`\mathrm{\Delta }B35`$mT. In our treatment, this period is given by the ratio of flux quantum $`hc/e`$ to the area $`𝒜_0`$ enclosed by the periodic orbit. From the experimental oscillation, we obtain $`𝒜_00.12\mu `$m<sup>2</sup>. This is consistent with the total area of the dot, $`0.32\mu `$m<sup>2</sup>, considering that there is likely to be some cancellation of fluxes between different parts of the orbit.

A puzzling feature of the initial experiments was that the dynamical modulation of the Coulomb Blockade peak heights was not seen in the experiment of Ref. . We attribute this behavior to two factors: the positioning of the leads relative to the gate and a relatively small mean free path. First, if the gate used to change the number of electrons is not along the shortest periodic orbit of either lead and the Fermi energy does not change appreciably in the dot, then one should not observe oscillations in the conductance peaks. In the geometry of Ref.  the leads and gate seem to be rather disconnected so this may be a factor. Second, in this experiment the mean free path $`\mathrm{}0.4\mu `$m only marginally exceeds the typical size of the dot $`d0.25\mu `$m, while the length of the shortest periodic orbit is at least twice the effective “diameter” $`d`$ of the dot: $`L_{\mathrm{min}}>2d0.5\mu m>\mathrm{}`$. If the mean free path is caused by short-range diffractive scattering, the dynamical effects are suppressed and will not affect the Coulomb Blockade measurements. However, in the opposite limit of a smooth scattering potential, dynamical effects caused by coherent branched flow  may still be present. The short mean free path measured in Ref.  suggests the presence of impurities in the two-dimensional electron gas layer leading to a short-range scattering potential and so suppression of dynamical effects.

The agreement of our semiclassical theory with experiment may seem surprising, since the adding of electrons changes the effective potential defining the dot because of the added charge. However, experiments on “magnetofingerprints” of the peaks suggest robustness of the effective potential—its change from peak to peak seems to be small in this case. In contrast, to affect the dynamical modulation one must substantially change the action of the shortest periodic orbit, which typically requires a much larger change in potential such as could be caused by the external gates.

## VI Summary

In conclusion, using semiclassical methods, we developed a dynamical statistical theory of Coulomb blockade peak heights in chaotic quantum dots. We derived the peak height distributions and the correlation functions, and showed that the corrections to the corresponding results of the standard statistical theory can be expressed in terms of the classical periodic orbits of the dot. Both our analytical results and numerical simulations clearly demonstrate that the dynamical effect is significant for both symmetric and asymmetric lead placements.

We close with two further experiments suggested by our results. First, if the tuning parameter used to change the number of electrons, such as a gate voltage, does not change the action of the dominant periodic orbit, then no modulation connected to that orbit should be seen. In particular, gates which affect different parts of the dot may produce different oscillatory behavior. Second, several samples made in a robust geometry—a circle with directly opposite leads, for example—should show the same modulation. Any deviations from the same behavior would be a sensitive indication of the material quality.

## Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge stadium eigenfunction calculations by J. H. Lefebvre, and helpful discussions with C. M. Marcus and M. Srednicki. We thank L. Kaplan for making available Ref.  which we received during the final stages of this work.

## A Temperature Calculations

For nonzero temperatures the conductance is obtained from a weighted sum over the zero temperature partial widths $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda `$ . For symmetric leads this yields

$$G=\frac{e^2}{h}\frac{\pi }{4kT}\underset{\lambda }{}w_\lambda \mathrm{\Gamma }_\lambda $$
(A1)
If $`kT,\mathrm{\Delta }e^2/C`$, then the weights are given by

$$w_\lambda =4f(\mathrm{\Delta }F_{N_0}\stackrel{~}{E}_F)n_\lambda _{N_0}\left[1f(E_\lambda (N)\stackrel{~}{E}_F)\right]$$
(A2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }F_N`$ is the change in the canonical free energy from $`N1`$ to $`N`$, $`n_\lambda _N`$ is the canonical occupation, $`\stackrel{~}{E}_F=E_N+(N1/2)e^2/C`$ is an effective Fermi energy and $`f(ϵ)=[1+\mathrm{exp}(ϵ/kT)]^1`$ is the Fermi-Dirac function.

To obtain the canonical free energy and canonical occupation number we use a recurrence relation developed by Brack, Genzken and Hansen  for the partition function $`Z(N,M;\beta )`$; $`N`$ is the number of particles, $`M`$ is the number of levels and $`\beta =1/kT`$. The final result for the partition function will not numerically depend upon $`M`$ for large $`M`$. The partition function is formally given by

$$Z(N,M;\beta )\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{I_{NM}}{}}\mathrm{exp}(\beta E_\alpha (N))=\mathrm{exp}(\beta E_0)z(N,M;\beta )$$
(A3)
where

$$z(N,M;\beta )\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{I_{NM}}{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta [E_\alpha (N)E_0]\right)$$
(A4)
Here $`E_\alpha (N)`$ is the sum of the energy of the single particle occupied levels $`ϵ_M`$ which does not include the charging energy, $`E_0`$ will be defined below, and $`I_{NM}`$ is the number of ways to fill $`M`$ levels with $`N`$ identical particles. The recurrence relation derived in Ref.  is

$$Z(N,M;\beta )=Z(N,M1;\beta )+\mathrm{exp}(\beta ϵ_M)Z(N1,M1;\beta )\mathrm{f}orN1,MN$$
(A5)
with the constraints

$`Z(0,M;\beta )1M0`$ (A6)
$`Z(N,N1;\beta )0N1.`$ (A7)
Note that the same recurrence relation also holds for $`z(N,M;\beta )`$. The choice $`E_0(N)=_{m=1}^Nϵ_m`$ yields the result

$$z(N,N;\beta )=1.$$
(A8)
Using the conditions (A7) and (A8) as a starting point for the recurrence relation Eq. (A5), we obtain $`z(N,M\mathrm{};\beta )`$ and thus $`Z(N,M\mathrm{};\beta )`$. For the small temperatures that we consider, the convergence of the recurrence relation is rapid.

Similarly, one can calculate a modified partition function $`Z_\lambda ^{}(N,M;\beta )`$ which has level $`\lambda `$ removed from the spectrum. The probability for level $`\lambda `$ to be unoccupied, $`P\{n_\lambda =0\}`$, is, then, simply $`Z_\lambda ^{}/Z`$. In terms of this probability, the average occupation numbers are given by $`n_\lambda _N=1P\{n_\lambda =0\}`$. Finally, the canonical free energy for $`N`$ electrons, $`F(N)`$, appearing in Eq. (A2) is

$$F(N)=\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{ln}Z(N,M\mathrm{};\beta ).$$
(A9)