Confinement-induced enhancement of electron-electron interactions in open quantum-dot arrays

We study the properties of the logarithmic variation observed in the temperature-dependent conductance of open quantum-dot arrays. The magnitude of this variation is found to exhibit a well-defined scaling with system size, and is also found to be unaffected by the application of magnetic fields sufficient to break time-reversal symmetry. We suggest that these characteristics are consistent with the logarithmic variation resulting from a confinement-induced enhancement of electron interactions in the arrays. In particular, we note that the size-dependent scaling of this term is similar to that which we would expect for a system whose boundary interactions act to amplify the mutual repulsion of electrons trapped within it.