Nondispersive backscattering in quantum wires

Abstract

At a Fano resonance in a quantum wire, there is strong quantum-mechanical backscattering. When identical wave packets are incident along all possible modes of incidence, each wave packet is strongly scattered. The scattered wave packets compensate each other in such a way that the outgoing wave packets are similar to the incoming wave packets. This is as if the wave packets are not scattered and not dispersed. This typically happens for the kink-antikink collision of the sine-Gordon model. As a result of such nondispersive behavior, the derivation of semiclassical formulas, such as the Friedel sum rule and the Wigner delay time, are exact at Fano resonance. For a single-channel quantum wire, this is true for any potential that exhibits a Fano resonance. For a multichannel quantum wire, we give an easy prescription to check for a given potential if this is true. We also show that the validity of the Friedel sum rule may or may not be related to the conservation of charge. If there are evanescent modes, then even when charge is conserved, the Friedel sum rule may break down away from the Fano resonances.