Novel properties of interacting particles in small low-dimensional systems

This work is about the properties of several low dimensional, small systems of interacting particles. We demonstrate that interaction between particles in the low dimensional small systems can lead to many unexpected effects. We considered electrons in a Luttinger liquid, in a superconducting state, and atoms in a magneto-optical trap. Using bosonization techniques we calculated the thermopower of a Luttinger liquid wire with an impurity. We predicted the appearance of a phase dependent force and resonant phase dependent magnetization in the superconductor - normal metal - superconductor (or superconductor - two dimensional electron gas - superconductor) junctioin. We also considered plasma oscillations inside thin superconducting tubes and rings and predicted that the velocities of the plasmons in these systems are periodic functions of the magnetic flux. By considering neutral atoms in a harmonic trap we discovered that strongly repelling atoms do not form Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature but tend to occupy different orbitals with small mutual overlap, forming crystallite structures similar to Wigner molecules of electrons inside a quantum dot.