Transport through a partially spin-polarized quantum dot

The addition spectrum of recent experiments on transport through chaotic quantum dots in the Coulomb blockade regime show features which are consistent with strongly correlated, partially spin polarized, electrons in the dot. On the other hand, the peak height distribution fits quite well a constant charging independent electron picture, and shows no signature of spin blockade behavior expected in the strongly correlated regime. Based on exact diagonalization studies of model Hamiltonians of strongly correlated quantum dot, we shall present a possible explanation for this behavior.