Reentrant onset of chaos in tubular image states -: art. no. 134705

We investigate the reentrant onset of chaos in "tubular image states," which are loosely bound states of electrons formed in the vicinity (20-40 nm) of conducting nanotubes. Chaos is shown to arise when an electron is placed in the vicinity of two metallic nanotubess with a magnetic field applied along the tubes. At stronger magnetic fields B similar to 10 T, we observe the formation of Landau-like states encircling the two-tube system, which wipe out the chaos. We can reinstall the chaos by charging oppositely the nanotubes, thus breaking the symmetry of the system and correspondingly the shape of the Landau-like states. Detailed analysis of the onset of chaos is done by studying the statistical properties of the eigenvalues spectrum and by investigating the spatial autocorrelation functions of individual eigenstates. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.