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We consider s-wave pairing in a double layer of two chiral metals due to Coulomb interaction, and study the Josephson effect near a domain wall, where the sign of the order parameter jumps. The domain wall creates two zero energy modes, whose superposition is associated with a current that flows in different direction in the two layers. Assuming a toroidal geometry, the effective Josephson currents winds around the domain walls, whose winding number is determined by the coefficients of the superimposed zero energy modes. This result can be understood as a competition of the conventional Josephson current perpendicular and the edge current parallel to a domain wall in a double layer of two chiral metals. As a realization we suggest the surface of a ring-shaped topological insulator. The duality between electron-electron and electron-hole double layers indicates that this effect should also be observable in excitonic double layers., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

Randomly repeated measurements during the evolution of a closed quantum system create a sequence of probabilities for the first detection of a certain quantum state. The related discrete monitored evolution for the return of the quantum system to its initial state is investigated. We found that the mean number of measurements until the first detection is an integer, namely the dimensionality of the accessible Hilbert space. Moreover, the mean first detected return time is equal to the average time step between successive measurements times the mean number of measurements. Thus, the mean first detected return time scales linearly with the dimensionality of the accessible Hilbert space. The main goal of this work is to explain the quantization of the mean return time in terms of a quantized Berry phase., Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures

We propose an approach to process data from interferometric measurements on a closed quantum system at random times. For this purpose a time correlation matrix is introduced which enables us to extract dynamical properties of the quantum system. After defining a generalized expectation value we obtain a distribution of time scales, an average transition time and a correlation time. A classical limit exists which is separated from the quantum fluctuations. The latter are characterized by resonances associated with poles of the generalized expectation value. Its analytic behavior is studied and some generic properties are linked to a quantized Berry phase., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures

We consider the quantum first detection problem for a particle evolving on a graph under repeated projective measurements with fixed rate $1/\tau$. A general formula for the mean first detected transition time is obtained for a quantum walk in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space where the initial state $|\psi_{\rm in}\rangle$ of the walker is orthogonal to the detected state $|\psi_{\rm d}\rangle$. We focus on diverging mean transition times, where the total detection probability exhibits a discontinuous drop of its value, by mapping the problem onto a theory of fields of classical charges located on the unit disk. Close to the critical parameter of the model, which exhibits a blow-up of the mean transition time, we get simple expressions for the mean transition time. Using previous results on the fluctuations of the return time, corresponding to $|\psi_{\rm in}\rangle = |\psi_{\rm d}\rangle$, we find close to these critical parameters that the mean transition time is proportional to the fluctuations of the return time, an expression reminiscent of the Einstein relation.

We propose to control of an electron-hole superfluid in semiconductor coupled quantum wells and double layers of two-dimensional (2D) material by an external periodic field. This can either be created by the gates periodically located and attached to the quantum wells or double layers of 2D material or by the Moir\'e pattern of two twisted layers. The dependence of the electron-hole pairing order parameter on the temperature, the charge carrier density, and the gate parameters is obtained by minimization of the mean-field free energy. The second order phase transition between superfluid and electron-hole plasma, controlled by the external periodic gate field, is analyzed for different parameters., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures

The properties of zero modes in particle-hole symmetric systems are analyzed in the presence of strong random scattering by a disordered environment. The study is based on the calculation of the time-averaged density distribution on a lattice. In particular, a flat distribution is found for strong random scattering. This result is compared with a decaying distribution for weak random scattering by an analysis of the scattering paths. In the calculation we consider the invariant measure of the average two-particle Green's function, which is related to lattice-covering self-avoiding (LCSA) strings. In particular, strong scattering is associated with LCSA loops, whereas weaker scattering is associated with open LCSA strings. Our results are a generalization of the delocalized state observed at the band center of a one-dimensional tight-binding model with random hopping by Dyson in 1953., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures

A finite photonic lattice with two bands and a random gap is considered. Using a two-dimensional Dirac equation, the effect of a random sign of the Dirac mass is studied numerically. The edge state at the sample boundary has a strong influence on the electromagnetic field and its polarization inside the sample. The creation of edge states through a randomly fluctuating sign of the Dirac mass defeats Anderson localization and allows the electromagnetic field to distribute over the entire sample. The width of the distribution increases with an increasing gap due to increasing sharpness of the edge states. These results are compared with those of a random one-band Helmholtz equation. In contrast to the Dirac model, the one-band model displays a clear signature of Anderson localization., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures

The average density of states of two- and three-dimensional Weyl fermions is studied in the self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA) and its corrections. The latter have been organized in terms of a 1/N expansion. It turns out that an expansion in terms of the disorder strength is not applicable, as previously mentioned by other authors. Nevertheless, the 1/N expansion provides a justification of the SCBA as the large N limit of Weyl fermions., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. B (2017)

The average density of states in a disordered three-dimensional Weyl system is discussed in the case of a continuous distribution of random scattering. Our result clearly indicate that the average density of states does not vanish, reflecting the absence of a critical point for a metal-insulator transition. This calculation supports recent suggestions of an avoided quantum critical point in the disordered three-dimensional Weyl semimetal. However, the effective density of states can be very small such that the saddle-approximation with a vanishing density of states might be valid for practical cases., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, additional supplement

Edge states are studied for the two-dimensional Dirac equation in a circular geometry. The properties of the two-component electromagnetic field are discussed in terms of the three-component polarization field, which can form a vortex structure near the Dirac node with a vorticity changing with the sign of the Dirac mass. The Berry curvature of the polarization field is related to the Berry curvature of the Dirac spinor state. This quantity is sensitive to a change of boundary conditions. In particular, it vanishes for a geometry with a single boundary but not for a geometry with two boundaries. This effect is robust against the creation of a step-like edge inside the sample., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

The topology of the band structure, which is determined by the lattice symmetries, has a strong influence on the transport properties. Here we consider an anisotropic honeycomb lattice and study the effect of a continuously deformed band structure on the optical conductivity and on diffusion due to quantum fluctuations. In contrast to the behavior at an isotropic node we find super- and subdiffusion for the anisotropic node. The spectral saddle points create van Hove singularities in the optical conductivity, which could be used to characterize the spectral properties experimentally., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Slightly extended version, e.g. Eq.(12) included

We consider excitons in a two-dimensional periodic potential and study the linear response of the excitonic superfluid to an electromagnetic wave at low and high densities. It turns out that the static structure factor for small wavevectors is very sensitive to a change of density and temperature. It is a consequence of the fact that thermal fluctuations play a crucial role at small wavevectors, since exchanging the order of the two limits, zero temperature and vanishing wavevector, leads to different results for the structure factor. This effect could be used for high accuracy measurements in the superfluid exciton phase, which might be realized by a gated electron-hole gas. The transition of the exciton system from the superfluid state to a non-superfluid state and its manifestation by light scattering are discussed., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

The influence of collective phonon excitations, due to intersite atomic interactions, on the stability of optical lattices is analyzed. These phonon excitations are shown to essentially reduce the ability of atoms to be localized. The states that seem to be insulating in the absence of the phonon excitations can become delocalized when the latter are present. The delocalization effect exists for both long-range as well as local atomic interactions., Comment: Latex file, 9 pages, 1 figure

We analyze the evolution of an entangled many-body state in a Josephson tunneling junction. A N00N state, which is a superposition of two complementary Fock states, appears in the evolution with sufficient probability only for a moderate many-body interaction on an intermediate time scale. This time scale is inversely proportional to the tunneling rate. Interaction between particles supports entanglement: The probability for creating an entangled state decays exponentially with the number of non-interacting particles, whereas it decays only like the inverse square root of the number of interacting particles., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

An exciton gas on a lattice is analyzed in terms of a convergent hopping expansion. For a given chemical potential our calculation provides a sufficient condition for the hopping rate to obtain an exponential decay of the exciton correlation function. This result indicates the existence of a Mott phase in which strong fluctuations destroy the long range correlations in the exciton gas at any temperature, either by thermal or by quantum fluctuations., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure

We cross-match galaxy cluster candidates selected via their Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) signatures in 129.1 deg$^2$ of the South Pole Telescope 2500d SPT-SZ survey with optically identified clusters selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) science verification data. We identify 25 clusters between $0.1\lesssim z\lesssim 0.8$ in the union of the SPT-SZ and redMaPPer (RM) samples. RM is an optical cluster finding algorithm that also returns a richness estimate for each cluster. We model the richness $\lambda$-mass relation with the following function $\langle\ln\lambda|M_{500}\rangle\propto B_\lambda\ln M_{500}+C_\lambda\ln E(z)$ and use SPT-SZ cluster masses and RM richnesses $\lambda$ to constrain the parameters. We find $B_\lambda= 1.14^{+0.21}_{-0.18}$ and $C_\lambda=0.73^{+0.77}_{-0.75}$. The associated scatter in mass at fixed richness is $\sigma_{\ln M|\lambda} = 0.18^{+0.08}_{-0.05}$ at a characteristic richness $\lambda=70$. We demonstrate that our model provides an adequate description of the matched sample, showing that the fraction of SPT-SZ selected clusters with RM counterparts is consistent with expectations and that the fraction of RM selected clusters with SPT-SZ counterparts is in mild tension with expectation. We model the optical-SZE cluster positional offset distribution with the sum of two Gaussians, showing that it is consistent with a dominant, centrally peaked population and a sub-dominant population characterized by larger offsets. We also cross-match the RM catalog with SPT-SZ candidates below the official catalog threshold significance $\xi=4.5$, using the RM catalog to provide optical confirmation and redshifts for additional low-$\xi$ SPT-SZ candidates.In this way, we identify 15 additional clusters with $\xi\in [4,4.5]$ over the redshift regime explored by RM in the overlapping region between DES science verification data and the SPT-SZ survey., Comment: 15 pages, 8 Figures, submitted to MNRAS

In the presence of strong random scattering the behavior of particles with degenerate spectra is quite different from Anderson localization of particles in a single band: it creates geometric states rather than confining the particles to an area of the size of the localization length. These states are subject to a Fokker-Planck dynamics with universal drift velocity and disorder dependent diffusion coefficient. This behavior has some similarity with the unidirectionally propagating edge states in quantum Hall systems., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

The role of collective phonon excitations on the properties of cold atoms in optical lattices is investigated. These phonon excitations are collective excitations, whose appearance is caused by intersite atomic interactions correlating the atoms, and they do not arise without such interactions. These collective excitations should not be confused with lattice vibrations produced by an external force. No such a force is assumed. But the considered phonons are purely self-organized collective excitations, characterizing atomic oscillations around lattice sites, due to intersite atomic interactions. It is shown that these excitations can essentially influence the possibility of atoms to be localized. The states that would be insulating in the absence of phonon excitations can become delocalized when these excitations are taken into account. This concerns long-range as well as local atomic interactions. To characterize the region of stability, the Lindemann criterion is used., Comment: Latex file, 27 pages, 1 figure

We calculate the transport properties of three-dimensional Weyl fermions in a disordered environment. The resulting conductivity depends only on the Fermi energy and the scattering rate. First we study the conductivity at the spectral node for a fixed scattering rate and obtain a continuous transition from an insulator at weak disorder to a metal at stronger disorder. In the self-consistent Born approximation the scattering rate depends on the Fermi energy. Then it is crucial that the limits of the conductivity for a vanishing Fermi energy and a vanishing scattering rate do not commute. As a result, there is also metallic behavior in the phase with vanishing scattering rate and only a quantum critical point remains as an insulating state., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

Anderson localization is studied for two-dimensional Dirac fermions in the presence of strong random scattering. Averaging with respect to the latter leads to a graphical representation of the correlation function with entangled random walks and three-vertices which connect three different types of propagators. This approach indicates Anderson localization along a semi-infinite line, where the localization length is inversely proportional to the scattering rate., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures

Transport properties of a two-band system with spectral nodes are studied in the presence of random scattering. Starting from a Grassmann functional integral, we derive a bosonic representation that is based on random phase fluctuations. Averaging leads to a graphical representation of the correlation function with entangled random walks and 4-vertices. In the strong scattering limit we derive a complex transition amplitude. For the example of two-dimensional Dirac fermions we obtain a localization length proportional to the inverse scattering rate., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

We study a weakly disordered 2D electron gas with two bands and a spectral node within the weak-localization approach and compare its results with those of Gaussian fluctuations around the self-consistent Born approximation. The appearance of diffusive modes depends on the type of disorder. In particular, we find for a random gap a diffusive mode only from ladder contributions, whereas for a random scalar potential the diffusive mode is created by ladder and by maximally crossed contributions. The ladder (maximally crossed) contributions correspond to fermionic (bosonic) Gaussian fluctuations. We calculate the conductivity corrections from the density--density Kubo formula and find a good agreement with the experimentally observed V-shape conductivity of graphene., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

We study the properties of the spinor wavefunction in a strongly disordered environment on a two-dimensional lattice. By employing a transfer-matrix calculation we find that there is a transition from delocalized to localized states at a critical value of the disorder strength. We prove that there exists an Anderson localized phase with exponentially decaying correlations for sufficiently strong scattering. Our results indicate that suppressed backscattering is not sufficient to prevent Anderson localization of surface states in topological insulators., Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, presentation simplified, one reference added

We study the evolution of a photonic state in a coupled pair of anharmonic cavities and compare it with the corresponding system of two coupled harmonic cavities. The photons in the anharmonic cavities interact with a two-level atom and are described within the Jaynes-Cummings model. Starting from an eigenstate of the Jaynes-Cummings model with N photons, the evolution of this state in the presence of photon tunneling between the cavities is studied. We evaluate the spectral density, the dynamics of the return as well as the transition amplitudes and the probability for the dynamical creation of a N00N state., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures

We use a random gap model to describe a metal-insulator transition in three-dimensional semiconductors due to doping and find a conventional phase transition, where the effective scattering rate is the order parameter. Spontaneous symmetry breaking results in metallic behavior, whereas the insulating regime is characterized by the absence of spontaneous symmetry breaking. The transition is continuous for the average conductivity with critical exponent equal to 1. Away from the critical point the exponent is roughly 0.6, which may explain experimental observations of a crossover of the exponent from 1 to 0.5 by going away from the critical point., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

A study of the formation of excitons as a problem of two Dirac particles in a gapped graphene layer and in two gapped graphene layers separated by a dielectric is presented. In the low energy limit the separation of the center-of-mass and relative motions is obtained. Analytical solutions for the wave function and energy dispersion for both cases when electron and hole interact via a Coulomb potential are found. It is shown that the energy spectrum and the effective exciton mass are functions of the energy gaps as well as interlayer separation in case of two layer gapped graphene., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1110.6744

The optical conductivity for the surface excitations for a Topological Insulator as a function of the chemical potential and disorder is considered. Due to the time reversal symmetry the chiral metallic surface states are protected against disorder. This allow to use the averaged single particle Green's function to compute the optical conductivity. We compute the conductivity in the limit of a finite disorder. We find that the conductivity as a function of the chemical potential $\mu $ and frequency $\Omega$ is given by the universal value $\sigma(\Omega>2\mu)= \frac{e^2 \pi}{8h}$. For frequencies $\Omega< \mu$ and elastic mean free path $l_{el}=v\tau$ which obey $k_{F}l>1$ we obtain the conductivity is given by $\sigma(\Omega<2|\mu|)=\frac{e^2}{2h}\frac{k_{F}l_{el}}{(\Omega \tau)^2+1}$. In the limit of zero disorder we find $\sigma(\mu\neq0,\Omega, k_{F}l\rightarrow \infty)=\frac{e^2 \pi}{2h}|\mu|\delta(\Omega)$.

We study the dynamics of non-interacting quantum particles with two bands in the presence of random scattering. The two bands are associated with a chiral symmetry. After breaking the latter by a potential, we still find that the quantum dynamics is controlled by a non-Abelian chiral symmetry. The possibility of spontaneous symmetry breaking is analyzed within a self-consistent approach, and the instability of a symmetric solution is discussed., Comment: 6 pages, no figures

We propose a lattice model for Dirac fermions which allows us to break the degeneracy of the node structure. In the presence of a random gap we analyze the scaling behavior of the localization length as a function of the system width within a numerical transfer-matrix approach. Depending on the strength of the randomness, there are different scaling regimes for weak, intermediate and strong disorder. These regimes are separated by transitions that are characterized by one-parameter scaling., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

We study a disordered 2D electron gas with a spectral node in a vicinity of the node. After identifying the fundamental dynamical symmetries of this system, the spontaneous breaking of the latter by a Grassmann field is studied within a nonlinear sigma model approach. This allows us to reduce the average two-particle Green's function to a diffusion propagator with a random diffusion coefficient. The latter has non-degenerate saddle points and is treated by the conventional self-consistent Born approximation. This leads to a renormalized chemical potential and a renormalized diffusion coefficient, where the DC conductivity increases linearly with the density of quasiparticles. Applied to the special case of Dirac fermions, our approach provides a comprehensive description of the minimal conductivity at the Dirac node as well as for the V-shape conductivity inside the bands., Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, extended version

The spectral density of the Rabi model is calculated exactly within a continued fraction approach. It is shown that the method yields a convergent solution., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure

We study the scattering dynamics of an $n$-component spinor wavefunction in a random environment on a two-dimensional lattice. In the presence of particle-hole symmetry we find diffusion on large scales. The latter is described by a non-interacting Grassmann field, indicating a special kind of asymptotic freedom in $d=2$., Comment: 9 pages, no figures, extended version

In this paper we investigate the influence of the next-nearest-neighbor coupling of tight-binding model of graphene on the spectrum of plasmon excitations. The nearest-neighbor tight-binding model was previously used to calculate plasmon spectrum in the next paper [1]. We expand the previous results of the paper by the next-nearest-neighbor tight-binding model. Both methods are based on the numerical calculation of the dielectric function of graphene and loss function. Here we compare plasmon spectrum of the next-nearest and nearest-neighbor tight-binding models and find differences between plasmon dispersion of two models., Comment: LaTeX, 4 pages, 4 Figs

We study the creation of a bosonic N00N state from the evolution of a Fock state in a double well. While noninteracting bosons disappear quickly in the Hilbert space, the evolution under the influence of a Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian is much more restricted. This restriction is caused by the fragmentation of the spectrum into a high-energy part with doubly degenerate levels and a nondegenerate low-energy part. This degeneracy suppresses transitions to states of the high-energy part of the spectrum. At a moderate interaction strength this effect supports strongly the dynamical formation of a N00N state. The N00N state is suppressed in an asymmetric double well, where the double degeneracy is absent., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures

We study a pair of anharmonic microwave cavities that is connected by an optical fiber. The photonic spectral density characterizes the evolution of the coupled cavities after the system has been prepared in a Fock or N00N state. We evaluate the photonic spectral density within the recursive projection method and find that the anharmonicity has no substantial effect on the spectral properties. In all cases the photonic spectral density has a Gaussian envelope for large photon numbers., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

We study the thermal distribution of intervalley phonons in a graphene sheet. These phonons have two components with the same frequency. The degeneracy of the two modes is preserved by weak electron-phonon coupling. A sufficiently strong electron-phonon coupling, however, can result in a splitting into an optical and an acoustic phonon branch, which creates a fluctuating gap in the electronic spectrum. We describe these effects by treating the phonon distribution within a saddle-point approximation. Fluctuations around the saddle point indicate a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition of the acoustic branch. This transition might be observable in the polarization of Raman scattered light., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure

We study the thermal distribution of phonons in a graphene sheet. Due to the two electronic bands there are two out-of-plane phonon modes with respect to the two sublattices. One of these modes undergoes an Ising transition by spontaneously breaking the sublattice symmetry. We calculate the critical point, the renormalization of the phonon frequency and the average lattice distortion. This transition might be observable in Raman scattering and in transport properties., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

We study the influence of lattice deformations on the optical conductivity of a two-dimensional electron gas. Lattice deformations are taken into account by introducing a non-abelian gauge field into the Eucledian action of two-dimensional Dirac electrons. This is in analogy to the introduction of the gravitation in the four-dimensional quantum field theory. We examine the effect of these deformations on the averaged optical conductivity. Within the perturbative theory up to second order we show that corrections of the conductivity due to the deformations cancel each other exactly. We argue that these corrections vanish to any order in perturbative expansion., Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures

We study a mixture of two light spin-1/2 fermionic atoms and two heavy atoms %in a Mott state in a double well potential. Inelastic scattering processes between both atomic species excite the heavy atoms and renormalize the tunneling rate and the interaction of the light atoms (polaron effect). The effective interaction of the light atoms changes its sign and becomes attractive for strong inelastic scattering. This is accompanied by a crossing of the energy levels from singly occupied sites at weak inelastic scattering to a doubly occupied and an empty site for stronger inelastic scattering. We are able to identify the polaron effect and the level crossing in the quantum dynamics., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

We calculate the optical Hall conductivity within the Kubo formalism for systems with gapped spectral nodes, where the latter have a power-law dispersion with exponent n. The optical conductivity is proportional to n and there is a characteristic logarithmic singularity as the frequency approaches the gap energy. The optical Hall conductivity is almost unaffected by thermal fluctuations and disorder for n=1, whereas disorder has a stronger effect on transport properties if n=2.

We study the expansion dynamics of a condensate in a strongly interacting Bose gas in the presence of an obstacle. Our focus is on the generation of shock waves after the Bose gas has passed the obstacle. The strongly interacting Bose gas is described in the slave-boson representation. A saddle-point approximation provides a nonlinear equation of motion for the macroscopic wave function, analogous to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation of a weakly interacting Bose gas but with different nonlinearity. We compare the results with the Gross-Pitaevskii dynamics of a weakly interacting Bose gas and find a similar behavior with a slower behavior of the strongly interacting system., Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures

In this review, we provide an in-depth description of the physics of monolayer and bilayer graphene from a theorist's perspective. We discuss the physical properties of graphene in an external magnetic field, reflecting the chiral nature of the quasiparticles near the Dirac point with a Landau level at zero energy. We address the unique integer quantum Hall effects, the role of electron correlations, and the recent observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in the monolayer graphene. The quantum Hall effect in bilayer graphene is fundamentally different from that of a monolayer, reflecting the unique band structure of this system. The theory of transport in the absence of an external magnetic field is discussed in detail, along with the role of disorder studied in various theoretical models. We highlight the differences and similarities between monolayer and bilayer graphene, and focus on thermodynamic properties such as the compressibility, the plasmon spectra, the weak localization correction, quantum Hall effect, and optical properties. Confinement of electrons in graphene is nontrivial due to Klein tunneling. We review various theoretical and experimental studies of quantum confined structures made from graphene. The band structure of graphene nanoribbons and the role of the sublattice symmetry, edge geometry and the size of the nanoribbon on the electronic and magnetic properties are very active areas of research, and a detailed review of these topics is presented. Also, the effects of substrate interactions, adsorbed atoms, lattice defects and doping on the band structure of finite-sized graphene systems are discussed. We also include a brief description of graphane -- gapped material obtained from graphene by attaching hydrogen atoms to each carbon atom in the lattice., Comment: 189 pages. submitted in Advances in Physics

We study the DC transport of finite graphene samples with random gap. Using Dirac fermions to describe the low-energy physics near the Dirac point, we employ a generalized Drude form for the conductivity. The latter is constant for a vanishing average gap but always decreases with increasing sample size for a nonzero average gap. The asymptotic conductivity of the infinite sample is either nonzero if the average gap is smaller than a critical value or zero otherwise. Our results are in agreement with recent numerical calculations of Bardarson et al.., Comment: 4 pages, improved figures, 2 figures added

We study the electronic states of graphene in piecewise constant potentials using the continuum Dirac equation appropriate at low energies, and a transfer matrix method. For superlattice potentials, we identify patterns of induced Dirac points which are present throughout the band structure, and verify for the special case of a particle-hole symmetric potential their presence at zero energy. We also consider the cases of a single trench and a p-n junction embedded in neutral graphene, which are shown to support confined states. An analysis of conductance across these structures demonstrates that these confined states create quantum interference effects which evidence their presence., Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, additional references added

We study the optical conductivity in the low-energy regime of gapped mono- and bilayer graphene. A scaling relation is found, in which the four parameters frequency, gap, Fermi energy and temperature appear only as combination of three independent parameters. The ratio of the optical conductivity of bilayer and mononlayer graphene is exactly 2., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures