TUNNELING SPECTROSCOPY OF QUANTUM CHARGE FLUCTUATIONS IN THE COULOMB-BLOCKADE

We present a theory of Coulomb blockade oscillations in tunneling thro ugh a pair of quantum dots connected by a tunable tunneling junction. The positions and amplitudes of peaks in the linear conductance an dir ectly related, respectively, to the ground-state energy and to the dyn amics of charge fluctuations. We study analytically both strong and we ak interdot tunneling. As the tunneling decreases, the period of the p eaks doubles, as observed experimentally. In the strong tunneling limi t, we predict a striking power-law temperature dependence of the peak amplitudes.