Conductance through an array of quantum dots

We propose a simple approach to study the conductance through an array of N interacting quantum dots, weakly coupled to metallic leads. Using a mapping to an effective site which describes the low-lying excitations and a slave-boson representation in the saddle-point approximation, we calculated the conductance through the system. Explicit results are presented for N=1 and N=3: a linear array and an isosceles triangle. For N=1 in the Kondo limit, the results are in very good agreement with previous results obtained with numerical renormalization group. In the case of the linear trimer for odd N, when the parameters are such that electron-hole symmetry is induced, we obtain perfect conductance G(0)=2e(2)/h. The validity of the approach is discussed in detail.