Conductance Peak Distributions in Quantum Dots at Finite Temperature: Signatures of the Charging Energy

Y. Alhassid, M. Gokcedag, A. D. Stone

Published 1998-07-31Version 1

We derive the finite temperature conductance peak distributions and peak-to-peak correlations for quantum dots in the Coulomb blockade regime assuming the validity of random matrix theory. The distributions are universal, depending only on the symmetry class and the temperature measured in units of the mean level spacing, $\Delta$. When the temperature is comparable to $\Delta$ several resonances contribute to the same conductance peak and we find significant deviations from the previously known $T \ll \Delta$ distributions. In contrast to the $T \ll \Delta$ case, these distributions show a strong signature of the charging energy and charge quantization on the dot.