Fractional Aharonov-Bohm effect in mesoscopic rings

Abstract

We study the effects of correlations on a one dimensional ring threaded by a uniform magnetic flux. In order to describe the interaction between particles, we work in the framework of the U $\infty$ Hubbard and $t$-$J$ models. We focus on the dilute limit. Our results suggest the posibility that the persistent current has an anomalous periodicity $\phi_{0}/p$, where $p$ is an integer in the range $2\leq p\leq N_{e}$ ($N_{e}$ is the number of particles in the ring and $\phi_{0}$ is the flux quantum). We found that this result depends neither on disorder nor on the detailed form of the interaction, while remains the on site infinite repulsion.