Ground state and collective excitations of quantum dots: Correlation effects and Hund’s rule in magnetic field

Abstract

We review ground-state properties and collective excitations of semiconductor quantum dots in a magnetic field obtained from current-spin density-functional theory. Due to exchange-correlation, a generalized Hund’s rule in magnetic field can be established which leads to spin alignment in partially occupied energy shells at the Fermi energy. This results, in distinct spin structures in single-electron addition spectra. Current-dependent exchange-correlation modifies the magnetic-field dependence of the ground state configuration and leads to deviations from plain spin-density calculations. Moreover it gives rise to spontaneous current textures at zero magnetic field. Collective excitation spectra, explicitly calculated for inelastic light scattering, exhibit novel features in their magnetic field dependence due to a finite ground-state spin density.