Exact time-evolving scattering states in open quantum-dot systems with an interaction: discovery of time-evolving resonant states

Abstract

We study exact time-evolving many-electron states of an open double quantum-dot system with an interdot Coulomb interaction. A systematic construction of the time-evolving states for arbitrary initial conditions is proposed. For any initial states of one- and two-electron plane waves on the electrical leads, we obtain exact solutions of the time-evolving scattering states, which converge to known stationary scattering eigenstates in the long-time limit. For any initial states of localized electrons on the quantum dots, we find exact time-evolving states of a new type, which we refer to as time-evolving resonant states. In contrast to stationary resonant states, whose wave functions spatially diverge and not normalizable, the time-evolving resonant states are normalizable since their wave functions are restricted to a finite space interval due to causality. The exact time-evolving resonant states enable us to calculate the time-dependence of the survival probability of electrons on the quantum dots for the system with the linearized dispersions. It decays exponentially in time on one side of an exponential point of resonance energies while, on the other side, it oscillates during the decay as a result of the interference of the two resonance energies.