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arXiv:1506.03878 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Electron and electron-hole quasiparticle states in a driven quantum contact

Mihajlo Vanević A, Julien Gabelli, Wolfgang Belzig, Bertrand Reulet

Published Jan 21, 2016• 28 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the many-body electronic state created by a time-dependent drive of a mesoscopic contact. The many-body state is expressed manifestly in terms of single-electron and electron-hole quasiparticle excitations with the amplitudes and probabilities of creation which depend on the details of the applied voltage. We experimentally probe the time dependence of the constituent electronic states by using an analog of the optical Hong-Ou-Mandel correlation experiment where electrons emitted from the terminals with a relative time delay collide at the contact. The electron wave packet overlap is directly related to the current noise power in the contact. We have confirmed the time dependence of the electronic states predicted theoretically by measurements of the current noise power in a tunnel junction under harmonic excitation.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.93.041416

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We study the many-body electronic state created by a time-dependent drive of a mesoscopic contact. The many-body state is expressed manifestly in terms of single-electron and electron-hole quasiparticle excitations with the amplitudes and probabilities of creation which depend on the details of the applied voltage. We experimentally probe the time dependence of the constituent electronic states by using an analog of the optical Hong-Ou-Mandel correlation experiment where electrons emitted from the terminals with a relative time delay collide at the contact. The electron wave packet overlap is directly related to the current noise power in the contact. We have confirmed the time dependence of the electronic states predicted theoretically by measurements of the current noise power in a tunnel junction under harmonic excitation.
Abstract We study the response of a degenerate Fermi sea to a time‐dependent perturbation. We find that elementary excitations in the Fermi sea are electrons and electron–hole quasiparticle pairs whose number and probability of creation depend on amplitude and shape of the drive. The excitations can be probed in a driven quantum contact at low temperature. While electronic excitations are associated to the dc voltage offset and determine the average current, the electron–hole pairs are created by the ac voltage component and give rise to the excess current noise power in a junction. We also obtain the many‐body state created by the drive. The constituent quasiparticle states can be probed by a Hong–Ou–Mandel type of correlation experiment where electrons emitted from the terminals with a relative time delay collide at the contact. The current noise power in the junction is directly related to the wave packet overlap at the contact. This is confirmed in recent experiments, demonstrating an unprecedented degree of control of elementary excitations in a coherent mesoscopic junction.
Theory predicts that electrons emitted from independent electron sources (metallic contacts) can nevertheless interfere. This interference is manifest in an exchange contribution to the shot noise correlation of currents at different contacts of a mesoscopic conductor. A geometry has been proposed in which second order (single particle) interference due to superposition of amplitudes is absent but fourth order (two-particle) interference exhibits Aharonov-Bohm oscillations. Recently such a geometry has been realized in an experiment and the theoretically predicted two-particle Aharonov-Bohm effect has been detected. We discuss Bell measurements and quantum state tomography using shot noise correlations. We discuss in addition structures in which two-particle interference effects are generated dynamically by varying electrostatic potentials with the help of gates or by generating electron-hole pairs by irradiating contacts of a mesoscopic conductor. These examples emphasize that two-particle processes are not related to a particular geometry but are a general feature of multiparticle observables like shot noise correlations.
We present the conditional quantum dynamics of an electron tunneling between two quantum dots subject to a measurement using a low transparency point contact or tunnel junction. The double dot system forms a single qubit and the measurement corresponds to a continuous in time readout of the occupancy of the quantum dot. We illustrate the difference between conditional and unconditional dynamics of the qubit. The conditional dynamics is discussed in two regimes depending on the rate of tunneling through the point contact: quantum jumps, in which individual electron tunneling current events can be distinguished, and a diffusive dynamics in which individual events are ignored, and the time-averaged current is considered as a continuous diffusive variable. We include the effect of inefficient measurement and the influence of the relative phase between the two tunneling amplitudes of the double dot/point contact system.
Quantum transport in mesoscopic conductors is essentially governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. One of the major open questions of quantum mechanics is what happens if noncommuting observables are measured simultaneously. Since current operators at different times do not commute, the high-frequency correlation functions of the current are realization of this fundamental quantum question. We formulate this problem in the context of measurements of finite-frequency current cumulants in a general quantum point contact, which are the subject to ongoing experimental effort. To this end, we present two models of detectors that correspond to a weak time-resolved measurement of the electronic current in a mesoscopic junction. In both cases, the backaction of the detector leads to observable corrections to the current correlations functions involving the so-called noise susceptibilities. As a result, we propose a reinterpretation of environmental corrections to the finite-frequency cumulants as inevitable effect resulting from basic quantum mechanical principles. Finally we make concrete predictions for the temperature, voltage, and frequency dependence of the third cumulant, which could be verified directly using current experimental techniques.
The standard entanglement test using the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality is known to fail in mesoscopic junctions at finite temperatures. Since this is due to the bidirectional particle flow, a similar failure is expected to occur in an ac-driven contact. We develop a continuous-variable entanglement test suitable for electrons and holes that are created by the ac drive. At low enough temperatures the generalized Bell inequality is violated in junctions with low conductance or a small number of transport channels and with ac voltages which create few electron-hole pairs per cycle. Our ac-entanglement test depends on the total number of electron-hole pairs and on the distribution of probabilities of pair creations similar to the Fano factor.
Abstract Theory predicts that electrons emitted from independent electron sources (metallic contacts) can nevertheless interfere. This interference is manifest in an exchange contribution to the shot noise correlation of currents at different contacts of a mesoscopic conductor. A geometry has been proposed in which second order (single particle) interference due to superposition of amplitudes is absent but fourth order (two‐particle) interference exhibits Aharonov‐Bohm oscillations. Recently such a geometry has been realized in an experiment and the theoretically predicted two‐particle Aharonov‐Bohm effect has been detected. We discuss Bell measurements and quantum state tomography using shot noise correlations. We discuss in addition structures in which two‐particle interference effects are generated dynamically by varying electrostatic potentials with the help of gates or by generating electron‐hole pairs by irradiating contacts of a mesoscopic conductor. These examples emphasize that two‐particle processes are not related to a particular geometry but are a general feature of multiparticle observables like shot noise correlations.