Statistics of branched flow in a weak correlated random potential.
Recent images of electron flow through a two-dimensional electron gas device show branching behavior that is reproduced in numerical simulations of motion in a correlated random potential [M. A. Topinka, Nature 410, 183 (2001)]]. We show how such branching arises from caustics in the classical flow and find a simple scaling behavior of the branching under variation of the random potential strength. Analytic results describing statistical properties of the branching are confirmed by classical and quantum numerical tests.
Kaplan
Lev
L
Institute for Nuclear Theory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.