Persistent current induced by vacuum fluctuations in a quantum ring

• Main Authors: Kibis, O. V., Kyriienko, O., Shelykh, I. A.
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Physics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/101618; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/18724
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We study theoretically interaction between electrons in a quantum ring embedded in a microcavity and vacuum fluctuations of electromagnetic field in the cavity. It is shown that the vacuum fluctuations can split electron states of the ring with opposite angular momenta. As a consequence, the ground state of the electron system in the quantum ring can be associated with nonzero electric current. Since a ground-state current flows without dissipation, such a quantum ring gets a magnetic moment and can be treated as an artificial spin.