Mesoscopic Systems With Fixed Number of Electrons

Abstract

In this paper, we study the physics of mesoscopic systems with noninteracting, but fixed number of electrons. From a technical point of view, this means a discussion of the differences between the canonical and the grand canonical ensemble (fixed versus fluctuating number of particles). Such a discussion is not trivial since the grand canonical ensemble is the most convenient basis for the statistics of identical particles and one has to spend labour in order to retrieve the canonical ensemble. Specifically, we are considering ensembles of mesoscopic systems with disorder, either by atomic defects or by fluctuations in their geometric definitions and we discuss various forms of disorder averages.