QUANTUM CHAOS IN OPEN VERSUS CLOSED QUANTUM DOTS - SIGNATURES OF INTERACTING PARTICLES

This paper reviews recent studies of mesoscopic fluctuations in transp ort through ballistic quantum dots, emphasizing differences between co nduction through open dots and tunneling through nearly isolated dots. Both the open dots and the tunnel-contacted dots show random, repeata ble conductance fluctuations with universal statistical properties tha t are accurately characterized by a variety of theoretical models incl uding random matrix theory, semiclassical methods and nonlinear sigma model calculations. We apply these results in open dots to extract the dephasing rate of electrons within the dot. In the tunneling regime, electron interaction dominates transport since the tunneling of a sing le electron onto a small dot may be sufficiently energetically costly (due to the small capacitance) that conduction is suppressed altogethe r. How interactions combine with quantum interference are best seen in this regime. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science.