Vortex formation in quantum dots in high magnetic fields

Abstract

We study electronic structures of two-dimensional quantum dots in high magnetic fields using the density-functional theory (DFT) and the exact diagonalization (ED). With increasing magnetic field, beyond the formation of the totally spin-polarized maximum density droplet (MDD) state, the DFT gives the ground-state total angular momentum as a continuous function with well-defined plateaus. The plateaus agree well with the magic angular momenta of the ED calculation. By constructing a conditional wave function from the Kohn-Sham states we show that vortices enter the quantum dot one-by-one at the transition to the state with the adjacent magic angular momentum. Vortices are also observed outside the high-density region of the quantum dot. These findings are compared to the ED results and we report a significant agreement. We study also interpretations and limitations of the density functional approach in these calculations.

4 pages, 5 figures, QD2004 conference paper

References in corpus (8)

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• Testing of two-dimensional local approximations in the current-spin and spin-density-functional theories
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• Universal vortex formation in rotating traps with bosons and fermions
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Vortices in quantum droplets: Analogies between boson and fermion systems
• Ground-state of two-dimensional finite electron systems in the Quantum Hall regime
• Variational Monte Carlo for Interacting Electrons in Quantum Dots
• Giant vortices in rotating electron droplets