Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:0710.5137 · Physical Review B

Dephasing in quantum chaotic transport: A semiclassical approach

Robert S. Whitney, Philippe Jacquod, Cyril Petitjean

Published Jan 15, 2008• 24 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate the effect of dephasing (decoherence) on quantum transport through open chaotic ballistic conductors in the semiclassical limit of small Fermi wavelength to system size ratio, ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}∕L⪡1$. We use the trajectory-based semiclassical theory to study a two-terminal chaotic dot with decoherence originating from (i) an external closed quantum chaotic environment, (ii) a classical source of noise, and (iii) a voltage probe, i.e., an additional current-conserving terminal. We focus on the pure dephasing regime, where the coupling to the external source of dephasing is so weak that it does not induce energy relaxation. In addition to the universal algebraic suppression of weak localization, we find an exponential suppression of weak localization $\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{exp}[\ensuremath{-}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}∕{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}]$, with the dephasing rate ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$. The parameter $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ depends strongly on the source of dephasing. For a voltage probe, $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}$ is of order the Ehrenfest time $\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{ln}[L∕{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}]$. In contrast, for a chaotic environment or a classical source of noise, it has the correlation length $\ensuremath{\xi}$ of the coupling or noise potential replacing the Fermi wavelength ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}$. We explicitly show that the Fano factor for shot noise is unaffected by decoherence. We connect these results to earlier works on dephasing due to electron-electron interactions and numerically confirm our findings.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.77.045315

Related papers

Stub model for dephasing in a quantum dot

C. W. J. Beenakker, B Michaelis

As an alternative to Büttiker's dephasing lead model, we examine a dephasing stub . Both models are phenomenological ways to introduce decoherence in chaotic scattering by a quantum dot. The difference is that the dephasing lead opens up the quantum dot by connecting it to an electron reservoir, while the dephasing stub is closed at one end. Voltage fluctuations in the stub take over the dephasing role from the reservoir. Because the quantum dot with dephasing lead is an open system, only expectation values of the current can be forced to vanish at low frequencies, while the outcome of an individual measurement is not so constrained. The quantum dot with dephasing stub, in contrast, remains a closed system with a vanishing low-frequency current at each and every measurement. This difference is a crucial one in the context of quantum algorithms, which are based on the outcome of individual measurements rather than on expectation values. We demonstrate that the dephasing stub model has a parameter range in which the voltage fluctuations are sufficiently strong to suppress quantum interference effects, while still being sufficiently weak that classical current fluctuations can be neglected relative to the nonequilibrium shot noise.

arXiv:cond-mat/0503347•Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General•Nov 22, 2005•10 citations

Stub model for dephasing in a quantum dot

C. W. J. Beenakker, B. Michaelis

Abstract. As an alternative to Büttiker’s dephasing lead model, we examine a dephasing stub. Both models are phenomenological ways to introduce decoherence in chaotic scattering by a quantum dot. The difference is that the dephasing lead opens up the quantum dot by connecting it to an electron reservoir, while the dephasing stub is closed at one end. Voltage fluctuations in the stub take over the dephasing role from the reservoir. Because the quantum dot with dephasing lead is an open system, only expectation values of the current can be forced to vanish at low frequencies, while the outcome of an individual measurement is not so constrained. The quantum dot with dephasing stub, in contrast, remains a closed system with a vanishing low-frequency current at each and every measurement. This difference is a crucial one in the context of quantum algorithms, which are based on the outcome of individual measurements rather than on expectation values. We demonstrate that the dephasing stub model has a parameter range in which the voltage fluctuations are sufficiently strong to suppress quantum interference effects, while still being sufficiently weak that classical current fluctuations can be neglected relative to the nonequilibrium shot noise.

•Jan 1, 2005•8 citations

Modeling the effects of dephasing on mesoscopic noise

Marco G. Pala, Giuseppe Iannaccone, Massimo Macucci +1 more

We present simulations of the effects of dephasing on the shot noise properties of mesoscopic coherent devices, such as chaotic cavities and Aharonov-Bohm rings. We adopt a phenomenological model that exploits the statistical nature of the dephasing mechanism and is able to cover the intermediate regime between a fully coherent and completely incoherent (i.e., semiclassical) transport. By investigating conductance and noise properties as a function of the dephasing length, we conclude that decoherence has no specific effect on shot noise which can be distinguished from the one it has on conductance. In addition, when a large number of conducting channels is considered, semiclassical and quantum behavior must converge, yielding as a consequence the independence of DC and noise properties from dephasing.

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•May 25, 2004•0 citations

Voltage probe model of spin decay in a chaotic quantum dot with applications to spin-flip noise and entanglement production

B. Michaelis, C. W. J. Beenakker

The voltage probe model is a model of incoherent scattering in quantum transport. Here we use this model to study the effect of spin-flip scattering on electrical conduction through a quantum dot with chaotic dynamics. The spin decay rate $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ is quantified by the correlation of spin-up and spin-down current fluctuations (spin-flip noise). The resulting decoherence reduces the ability of the quantum dot to produce spin-entangled electron-hole pairs. For $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ greater than a critical value ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}$, the entanglement production rate vanishes identically. The statistical distribution $P({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c})$ of the critical decay rate in an ensemble of chaotic quantum dots is calculated using the methods of random-matrix theory. For small ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}$ this distribution is $\ensuremath{\propto}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}^{\ensuremath{-}1+\ensuremath{\beta}∕2}$, depending on the presence $(\ensuremath{\beta}=1)$ or absence $(\ensuremath{\beta}=2)$ of time-reversal symmetry. To make contact with experimental observables, we derive a one-to-one relationship between the entanglement production rate and the spin-resolved shot noise, under the assumption that the density matrix is isotropic in the spin degrees of freedom. Unlike the Bell inequality, this relationship holds for both pure and mixed states. In the tunneling regime, the electron-hole pairs are entangled if and only if the correlator of parallel spin currents is at least twice larger than the correlator of antiparallel spin currents.

arXiv:cond-mat/0512465•Physical Review B•Mar 23, 2006•10 citations

Chaotic decoherence under finite resolution: Lyapunov-controlled interference suppression

S. Stewart, Sara Ismail–Sutton

We study a finite-resolution route to decoherence-like behavior in quantum systems whose classical limit is chaotic. The mechanism does not require tracing over an external environment, adding phenomenological noise, or changing unitary quantum mechanics. Instead, chaotic phase-space transport drives Wigner-function interference fringes to progressively shorter wavelengths, while any observation, reconstruction, or deliberately coarse description has finite phase-space resolution. Modeling that resolution by Gaussian coarse-graining, we show that interference components transported below the resolution scale are exponentially attenuated in the coarse-grained phase-space description. The exact quantum state remains pure under unitary evolution; the suppression is, therefore, operational rather than objective. In the semiclassical pre-Ehrenfest window, the instability scale is set by finite-time Lyapunov exponents, while the dimensionless suppression factor is determined by the initial fringe geometry and the coarse-graining covariance. The same geometry gives a robustness criterion: interference components with strong projection onto covector-expanding Oseledets directions are suppressed first, while components avoiding those directions remain visible longer. A hyperbolic cat-map example illustrates the mechanism explicitly. We state the regime of validity, distinguish the mechanism from environment-induced decoherence, and give a practical extraction procedure for numerical or experimental tests.

Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science•Jul 1, 2026•0 citations

Decoherence, entanglement decay, and equilibration produced by chaotic environments

Gabriela Barreto Lemos, Fabricio Toscano

We investigate decoherence in quantum systems coupled via dephasing-type interactions to an arbitrary environment with chaotic underlying classical dynamics. The coherences of the reduced state of the central system written in the preferential energy eigenbasis are quantum Loschmidt echoes, which in the strong coupling regime are characterized at long time scales by fluctuations around a constant mean value. We show that due to the chaotic dynamics of the environment, the mean value and the width of the Loschmidt-echo fluctuations are inversely proportional to the quantity we define as the effective Hilbert-space dimension of the environment, which in general is smaller than the dimension of the entire available Hilbert space. Nevertheless, in the semiclassical regime this effective Hilbert-space dimension is in general large, in which case even a chaotic environment with few degrees of freedom produces decoherence without revivals. Moreover we show that in this regime the environment leads the central system to equilibrate to the time average of its reduced density matrix, which corresponds to a diagonal state in the preferential energy eigenbasis. For the case of two uncoupled, initially entangled central systems that interact with identical local quantum environments with chaotic underlying classical dynamics, we show that in the semiclassical limit the equilibration state is arbitrarily close to a separable state. We confirm our results with numerical simulations in which the environment is modeled by the quantum kicked rotor in the chaotic regime.

arXiv:1108.4024•Physical Review E•Jul 25, 2011•12 citations
We investigate the effect of dephasing (decoherence) on quantum transport through open chaotic ballistic conductors in the semiclassical limit of small Fermi wavelength to system size ratio, \ensuremathλF∕L⪡1{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}∕L⪡1\ensuremathλF​∕L⪡1. We use the trajectory-based semiclassical theory to study a two-terminal chaotic dot with decoherence originating from (i) an external closed quantum chaotic environment, (ii) a classical source of noise, and (iii) a voltage probe, i.e., an additional current-conserving terminal. We focus on the pure dephasing regime, where the coupling to the external source of dephasing is so weak that it does not induce energy relaxation. In addition to the universal algebraic suppression of weak localization, we find an exponential suppression of weak localization \ensuremath∝exp[\ensuremath−\ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi∕\ensuremathτ\ensuremathϕ]\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{exp}[\ensuremath{-}\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}∕{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}]\ensuremath∝exp[\ensuremath−\ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi​∕\ensuremathτ\ensuremathϕ​], with the dephasing rate \ensuremathτ\ensuremathϕ\ensuremath−1{\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}\ensuremathτ\ensuremathϕ\ensuremath−1​. The parameter \ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi​ depends strongly on the source of dephasing. For a voltage probe, \ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}\ensuremathτ\ifmmode~\else˜\fi​ is of order the Ehrenfest time \ensuremath∝ln[L∕\ensuremathλF]\ensuremath{\propto}\mathrm{ln}[L∕{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}]\ensuremath∝ln[L∕\ensuremathλF​]. In contrast, for a chaotic environment or a classical source of noise, it has the correlation length \ensuremathξ\ensuremath{\xi}\ensuremathξ of the coupling or noise potential replacing the Fermi wavelength \ensuremathλF{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{F}\ensuremathλF​. We explicitly show that the Fano factor for shot noise is unaffected by decoherence. We connect these results to earlier works on dephasing due to electron-electron interactions and numerically confirm our findings.
As an alternative to Büttiker's dephasing lead model, we examine a dephasing stub . Both models are phenomenological ways to introduce decoherence in chaotic scattering by a quantum dot. The difference is that the dephasing lead opens up the quantum dot by connecting it to an electron reservoir, while the dephasing stub is closed at one end. Voltage fluctuations in the stub take over the dephasing role from the reservoir. Because the quantum dot with dephasing lead is an open system, only expectation values of the current can be forced to vanish at low frequencies, while the outcome of an individual measurement is not so constrained. The quantum dot with dephasing stub, in contrast, remains a closed system with a vanishing low-frequency current at each and every measurement. This difference is a crucial one in the context of quantum algorithms, which are based on the outcome of individual measurements rather than on expectation values. We demonstrate that the dephasing stub model has a parameter range in which the voltage fluctuations are sufficiently strong to suppress quantum interference effects, while still being sufficiently weak that classical current fluctuations can be neglected relative to the nonequilibrium shot noise.
Abstract. As an alternative to Büttiker’s dephasing lead model, we examine a dephasing stub. Both models are phenomenological ways to introduce decoherence in chaotic scattering by a quantum dot. The difference is that the dephasing lead opens up the quantum dot by connecting it to an electron reservoir, while the dephasing stub is closed at one end. Voltage fluctuations in the stub take over the dephasing role from the reservoir. Because the quantum dot with dephasing lead is an open system, only expectation values of the current can be forced to vanish at low frequencies, while the outcome of an individual measurement is not so constrained. The quantum dot with dephasing stub, in contrast, remains a closed system with a vanishing low-frequency current at each and every measurement. This difference is a crucial one in the context of quantum algorithms, which are based on the outcome of individual measurements rather than on expectation values. We demonstrate that the dephasing stub model has a parameter range in which the voltage fluctuations are sufficiently strong to suppress quantum interference effects, while still being sufficiently weak that classical current fluctuations can be neglected relative to the nonequilibrium shot noise.
We present simulations of the effects of dephasing on the shot noise properties of mesoscopic coherent devices, such as chaotic cavities and Aharonov-Bohm rings. We adopt a phenomenological model that exploits the statistical nature of the dephasing mechanism and is able to cover the intermediate regime between a fully coherent and completely incoherent (i.e., semiclassical) transport. By investigating conductance and noise properties as a function of the dephasing length, we conclude that decoherence has no specific effect on shot noise which can be distinguished from the one it has on conductance. In addition, when a large number of conducting channels is considered, semiclassical and quantum behavior must converge, yielding as a consequence the independence of DC and noise properties from dephasing.
The voltage probe model is a model of incoherent scattering in quantum transport. Here we use this model to study the effect of spin-flip scattering on electrical conduction through a quantum dot with chaotic dynamics. The spin decay rate $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ is quantified by the correlation of spin-up and spin-down current fluctuations (spin-flip noise). The resulting decoherence reduces the ability of the quantum dot to produce spin-entangled electron-hole pairs. For $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ greater than a critical value ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}$, the entanglement production rate vanishes identically. The statistical distribution $P({\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c})$ of the critical decay rate in an ensemble of chaotic quantum dots is calculated using the methods of random-matrix theory. For small ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}$ this distribution is $\ensuremath{\propto}{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{c}^{\ensuremath{-}1+\ensuremath{\beta}∕2}$, depending on the presence $(\ensuremath{\beta}=1)$ or absence $(\ensuremath{\beta}=2)$ of time-reversal symmetry. To make contact with experimental observables, we derive a one-to-one relationship between the entanglement production rate and the spin-resolved shot noise, under the assumption that the density matrix is isotropic in the spin degrees of freedom. Unlike the Bell inequality, this relationship holds for both pure and mixed states. In the tunneling regime, the electron-hole pairs are entangled if and only if the correlator of parallel spin currents is at least twice larger than the correlator of antiparallel spin currents.
We study a finite-resolution route to decoherence-like behavior in quantum systems whose classical limit is chaotic. The mechanism does not require tracing over an external environment, adding phenomenological noise, or changing unitary quantum mechanics. Instead, chaotic phase-space transport drives Wigner-function interference fringes to progressively shorter wavelengths, while any observation, reconstruction, or deliberately coarse description has finite phase-space resolution. Modeling that resolution by Gaussian coarse-graining, we show that interference components transported below the resolution scale are exponentially attenuated in the coarse-grained phase-space description. The exact quantum state remains pure under unitary evolution; the suppression is, therefore, operational rather than objective. In the semiclassical pre-Ehrenfest window, the instability scale is set by finite-time Lyapunov exponents, while the dimensionless suppression factor is determined by the initial fringe geometry and the coarse-graining covariance. The same geometry gives a robustness criterion: interference components with strong projection onto covector-expanding Oseledets directions are suppressed first, while components avoiding those directions remain visible longer. A hyperbolic cat-map example illustrates the mechanism explicitly. We state the regime of validity, distinguish the mechanism from environment-induced decoherence, and give a practical extraction procedure for numerical or experimental tests.
We investigate decoherence in quantum systems coupled via dephasing-type interactions to an arbitrary environment with chaotic underlying classical dynamics. The coherences of the reduced state of the central system written in the preferential energy eigenbasis are quantum Loschmidt echoes, which in the strong coupling regime are characterized at long time scales by fluctuations around a constant mean value. We show that due to the chaotic dynamics of the environment, the mean value and the width of the Loschmidt-echo fluctuations are inversely proportional to the quantity we define as the effective Hilbert-space dimension of the environment, which in general is smaller than the dimension of the entire available Hilbert space. Nevertheless, in the semiclassical regime this effective Hilbert-space dimension is in general large, in which case even a chaotic environment with few degrees of freedom produces decoherence without revivals. Moreover we show that in this regime the environment leads the central system to equilibrate to the time average of its reduced density matrix, which corresponds to a diagonal state in the preferential energy eigenbasis. For the case of two uncoupled, initially entangled central systems that interact with identical local quantum environments with chaotic underlying classical dynamics, we show that in the semiclassical limit the equilibration state is arbitrarily close to a separable state. We confirm our results with numerical simulations in which the environment is modeled by the quantum kicked rotor in the chaotic regime.