Counting statistics of charge transfers in a point contact interacting with an arbitrary quantum system is studied. The theory for the charge specific density matrix is developed, allowing the evaluation of the probability of the outcome of any joint measurement of the state of the quantum system and the transferred charge. Applying the method of charge projectors, the master equation for the charge specific density matrix is derived in the tunneling Hamiltonian model of the point contact. As an example, the theory is applied to a quantum measurement of a two-state system: The evolution of the charge specific density matrix in the presence of Nyquist or Schottky noise is studied and the conditions for the realization of a projective measurement are established.
Counting statistics of charge transfers in a point contact interacting with an arbitrary quantum system is studied. The theory for the charge specific density matrix is developed, allowing the evaluation of the probability of the outcome of any joint measurement of the state of the quantum system and the transferred charge. Applying the method of charge projectors, the master equation for the charge specific density matrix is derived in the tunneling Hamiltonian model of the point contact. As an example, the theory is applied to a quantum measurement of a two-state system: The evolution of the charge specific density matrix in the presence of Nyquist or Schottky noise is studied and the conditions for the realization of a projective measurement are established.
We provide a unified view for the master equation (ME) approach and the quantum trajectory (QT) approach to the measurement problem of an electron tunnelling between two coherently coupled quantum dots (CQD’s) using a low transparency point contact (PC) or tunnel junction as a detector. We show that the master equation for the reduced or “partially” reduced density matrix can be obtained when an average or “partial” average is taken on the conditional, stochastic density matrix over the possible outcomes of the measurement. Then we simulate ) , ( t N P , the probability of finding N electron that have tunnelled through the PC in time t , using 10000 QT’s and measurement records. The simulation results of ) , ( t N P are in very good agreement with those obtained from the Fourier analysis of the “partially” reduced density matrix. The theory of QT’s (also known as stochastic Schrodinger equation or stochastic ME) has been developed in last ten years mainly in the quantum optics community to describe open quantum system subject to continuous quantum measurements. But it was introduced to the context of solid-state mesoscopics only recently (e.g., Goan et. al. 2001 and references therein). The CQD system, considered here, forms a single charge quantum bit (qubit), and the measurement corresponds to a continuous in time readout of the occupancy of the quantum dots. The QT or stochastic quantum-jump ME of the density matrix operator ) (t c
This thesis is concerned with employing the statistics of charge transfer in a conductor as a tool for quantum measurement. The physical systems studied are electronic devices made by nanoscale manufacturing techniques. In this context quantum measurement appears not as a postulate, but as physical process. In this thesis I am considering a quantum system, in particular a qubit or a nanomechanical resonator, interacting with a tunnel junction. The effect of coupling a quantum system to a tunnel junction is twofold: The state of the quantum system will be changed and there will be information about the quantum system in the statistics of charge transfer of the tunnel junction. As the first example a quantum measurement process of a qubit is considered. A common description of the system and charge dynamics is found by introducing a new quantity, the charge specific density matrix. By deriving and solving a Markovian master equation for this quantity the measurement process is analyzed. The measurement is shown to be a dynamical process, where correlations between the initial state of the qubit and the number of charges transferred in the tunnel junction arise on a typical timescale, the measurement time. As another example of a quantum system a nanomechanical oscillator is considered. It is found, that the biased tunnel junction, acting as a non-equilibrium environment to the oscillator, increases the temperature of the oscillator from its thermal equilibrium value. The current in the junction is modulated by the interaction with the oscillator, but the influence vanishes for bias voltages smaller than the oscillator frequency. For an asymmetric junction and non-vanishing oscillator momentum a current is shown to flow through the junction even at zero bias. The current noise spectrum induced by the oscillator in the tunnel junction consists of a noise floor and a peaked structure with peaks at zero frequency, the oscillator frequency and double the oscillator frequency. The peak heights are dependent on the coupling strength between oscillator and junction, the occupation number of the oscillator, the bias voltage and the junction temperature. I show how the peak height can be used as a measure of the oscillator temperature, demonstrating that the noise of a tunnel junction can be used for electronic thermometry of a nanomechanical oscillator.
We provide a unified picture for the master equation approach and the quantum trajectory approach to a measurement problem of a two-state quantum system (a qubit), an electron coherently tunneling between two coupled quantum dots (CQD's) measured by a low transparency point contact (PC) detector. We show that the master equation of ``partially'' reduced density matrix can be derived from the quantum trajectory equation (stochastic master equation) by simply taking a ``partial'' average over the all possible outcomes of the measurement. If a full ensemble average is taken, the traditional (unconditional) master equation of reduced density matrix is then obtained. This unified picture, in terms of averaging over (tracing out) different amount of detection records (detector states), for these seemingly different approaches reported in the literature is particularly easy to understand using our formalism. To further demonstrate this connection, we analyze an important ensemble quantity for an initial qubit state readout experiment, P(N,t), the probability distribution of finding N electrons that have tunneled through the PC barrier in time t. The simulation results of P(N,t) using 10000 quantum trajectories and corresponding measurement records are, as expected, in very good agreement with those obtained from the Fourier analysis of the ``partially'' reduced density matrix. However, the quantum trajectory approach provides more information and more physical insights into the ensemble and time averaged quantity P(N,t). Each quantum trajectory resembles a single history of the qubit state in a single run of the continuous measurement experiment. We finally discuss, in this approach, the possibility of reading out the state of the qubit system in a single-shot experiment.
We provide a unified picture for the master equation approach and the quantum trajectory approach to a measurement problem of a two-state quantum system (a qubit), an electron coherently tunneling between two coupled quantum dots (CQD's) measured by a low transparency point contact (PC) detector. We show that the master equation of ``partially'' reduced density matrix can be derived from the quantum trajectory equation (stochastic master equation) by simply taking a ``partial'' average over the all possible outcomes of the measurement. If a full ensemble average is taken, the traditional (unconditional) master equation of reduced density matrix is then obtained. This unified picture, in terms of averaging over (tracing out) different amount of detection records (detector states), for these seemingly different approaches reported in the literature is particularly easy to understand using our formalism. To further demonstrate this connection, we analyze an important ensemble quantity for an initial qubit state readout experiment, P(N,t), the probability distribution of finding N electron that have tunneled through the PC barrier(s) in time t. The simulation results of P(N,t) using 10000 quantum trajectories and corresponding measurement records are, as expected, in very good agreement with those obtained from the Fourier analysis of the ``partially'' reduced density matrix. However, the quantum trajectory approach provides more information and more physical insights into the ensemble and time averaged quantity P(N,t). Each quantum trajectory resembles a single history of the qubit state in a single run of the continuous measurement experiment. We finally discuss, in this approach, the possibility of reading out the state of the qubit system in a single-shot experiment.
We obtain the finite-temperature unconditional master equation of the density matrix for two coupled quantum dots (CQD's) when one dot is subjected to a measurement of its electron occupation number using a point contact (PC). To determine how the CQD system state depends on the actual current through the PC device, we use the so-called quantum trajectory method to derive the zero-temperature conditional master equation. We first treat the electron tunneling through the PC barrier as a classical stochastic point process (a quantum-jump model). Then we show explicitly that our results can be extended to the quantum-diffusive limit when the average electron tunneling rate is very large compared to the extra change of the tunneling rate due to the presence of the electron in the dot closer to the PC. We find that in both quantum-jump and quantum-diffusive cases, the conditional dynamics of the CQD system can be described by the stochastic Schr\"odinger equations for its conditioned state vector if and only if the information carried away from the CQD system by the PC reservoirs can be recovered by the perfect detection of the measurements.
Abstract Methods of charge projectors using special gauge transformations for tagging particles are presented. Such engineering of a many‐body wave function allows extracting information regarding properties of a physical system beyond average values. The method is first used to establish under which circumstances the properties of particle currents can be understood as discrete transfers of particles from one region to another. Next, the method is extended to show that in a tunnel junction coupled to a two‐level system, the transmission of electrical noise causes decoherence and thereby a projective measurement of the two‐level system as encoded by the amount of tunnelled charge. Finally the method is extended to deal with the exceptional circumstance where a measurement on a system with a large number of particles gives macroscopically distinguishable outcomes that are unpredictable, the observed interference pattern of interfering BEC's.