Universality and scaling in a charge two-channel Kondo device

Abstract

We study a charge two-channel Kondo model, demonstrating that recent experiments [Z. Iftikhar et al, Nature (London) 526, 233 (2015)] realize an essentially perfect quantum simulation - not just of its universal physics, but also nonuniversal effects away from the scaling limit. Numerical renormalization group (RG) calculations yield conductance line shapes encoding RG flow to a critical point involving a free Majorana fermion. By mimicking the experimental protocol, the experimental curve is reproduced quantitatively over 9 orders of magnitude, although we show that far greater bandwidth/temperature separation is required to obtain the universal result. Fermi liquid instabilities are also studied: In particular, our exact analytic results for nonlinear conductance provide predictions away from thermal equilibrium, in the regime of existing experiments.