Spin degeneracy and conductance fluctuations in open quantum dots

Phys Rev Lett. 2001 Mar 5;86(10):2102-5. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.2102.

Abstract

The dependence of conductance fluctuations on parallel magnetic field is used as a probe of spin degeneracy in open GaAs quantum dots. The variance of fluctuations at high parallel field is reduced from the low-field variance (with broken time-reversal symmetry) by factors ranging from roughly 2 in a 1 microm (2) dot to greater than 4 in 8 microm (2) dots. The factor of 2 is expected for Zeeman splitting of spin-degenerate channels. A possible explanation for the larger suppression based on field-dependent spin-orbit scattering is proposed.