Charge Fractionalization in a Mesoscopic Ring

Abstract

We study the fractionalization of an electron tunneling into a strongly interacting electronic one-dimensional ring. As a complement to transport measurements in quantum wires connected to leads, we propose non-invasive measures involving the magnetic field profile around the ring to probe this fractionalization. In particular, we show that the magnetic-field squared produced by the electron and the power that it would induce in a detector exhibit anisotropic profiles that depend on the degree of fractionalization. We contrast true fractionalization with two other scenarios which could mimic it -- quantum superposition and classical probabilistic electron insertion. We show that the proposed field-dependent measures and those of the persistent current can distinguish between these three scenarios.