Mesoscopic transport and quantum chaos

Abstract

The field of Quantum Chaos, addressing the quantum manifestations of an underlying classically chaotic dynamics, was developed in the early eighties, mainly from a theoretical perspective. Few experimental systems were initially recognized to exhibit the versatility of being sensitive, at the same time, to their classical and quantum dynamics. Rydberg atoms provided the main testing ground of Quantum Chaos concepts until the early nineties, marked by the development of microwave billiards, ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices, and low-temperature transport in mesoscopic semiconductor structures. The mesoscopic regime is attained in small condensed matter systems at sufficiently low temperatures for the electrons to propagate coherently across the sample. The quantum coherence of electrons, together with the ballistic motion characteristic of ultra-clean microstructures, motivated the proposal of mesocopic systems as a very special laboratory for performing measurements and testing the theoretical ideas of Quantum Chaos. Experimental realizations and many important developments, reviewed in this article, followed from such a connection.