Paper detail

Anderson model out of equilibrium: conductance and Kondo temperature

We calculate conductance through a quantum dot weakly coupled to metallic contacts by means of Keldysh out of equilibrium formalism. We model the quantum dot with the SU(2) Anderson model and consider the limit of infinite Coulomb repulsion. We solve the interacting system with the numerical diagrammatic Non-Crossing Approximation (NCA). We calculate the conductance as a function of temperature and gate voltage, from differential conductance (dI/dV) curves. We discuss these results in comparison with those from the linear response approach which can be performed directly in equilibrium conditions. Comparison shows that out of equilibrium results are in good agreement with the ones from linear response supporting reliability to the method employed. The discussion becomes relevant when dealing with general transport models through interacting regions. We also analyze the evolution of the curve of conductance vs gate voltage with temperature. While at high temperatures the conductance is peaked when the Fermi energy coincides with the energy of the localized level, it presents a plateau for low temperatures as a consequence of Kondo effect. We discuss different ways to determine Kondo's temperature and compare the values obtained in and out of equilibrium.