Applications of nonequilibrium Kubo formula to the detection of quantum noise

The Kubo fluctuation-dissipation theorem relates the current fluctuations of a system in an equilibrium state with the linear AC-conductance. This theorem holds also out of equilibrium provided that the system is in a stationary state and that the linear conductance is replaced by the (dynamic) conductance with respect to the non equilibrium state. We provide a simple proof for that statement and then apply it in two cases. We first show that in an excess noise measurement at zero temperature, in which the impedance matching is maintained while driving a mesoscopic sample out of equilibrium, it is the nonsymmetrized noise power spectrum which is measured, even if the bare measurement, i.e. without extracting the excess part of the noise, obtains the symmetrized noise. As a second application we derive a commutation relation for the two components of fermionic or bosonic currents which holds in every stationary state and which is a generalization of the one valid only for bosonic currents. As is usually the case, such a commutation relation can be used e.g. to derive Heisenberg uncertainty relationships among these current components.Comment: 10 pages, Invited talk to be given by Y. I. at the SPIE Noise Conference, Grand Canary, June 2004. Added reference and 2 footnotes, corrected typo in Eq.

Generalized constraints on quantum amplification

We derive quantum constraints on the minimal amount of noise added in linear amplification involving input or output signals whose component operators do not necessarily have c-number commutators, as is the case for fermion currents. This is a generalization of constraints derived for the amplification of bosonic fields whose components posses c-number commutators.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Output spectrum of a measuring device at arbitrary voltage and temperature

We calculate the noise spectrum of the electrical current in a quantum point contact which is used for continuous measurements of a two-level system (qubit). We generalize the previous results obtained for the regime of high transport voltages (when $V$ is much larger than the qubit's energy level splitting $B$ (we put $e=\hbar=1$)) to the case of arbitrary voltages and temperatures. When $V \sim B$ the background output spectrum is essentially asymmetric in frequency, i.e., it is no longer classical. Yet, the spectrum of the amplified signal, i.e., the two coherent peaks at $\omega=\pm B$ is still symmetric. In the emission (negative frequency) part of the spectrum the coherent peak can be 8 times higher than the background pedestal. Alternatively, this ratio can be seen in the directly measureable {\it excess} noise. For $V < B$ and T=0 the coherent peaks do not appear at all. We relate these results to the properties of linear amplifiers.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, the results generalized for arbitrary angle between the magnetic field and the observed component of the spin, minor corrections and typo

Spin effects in Bose-Glass phases

We study the mechanism of formation of Bose glass (BG) phases in the spin-1 Bose Hubbard model when diagonal disorder is introduced. To this aim, we analyze first the phase diagram in the zero-hopping limit, there disorder induces superposition between Mott insulator (MI) phases with different filling numbers. Then BG appears as a compressible but still insulating phase. The phase diagram for finite hopping is also calculated with the Gutzwiller approximation. The bosons' spin degree of freedom introduces another scattering channel in the two-body interaction modifying the stability of MI regions with respect to the action of disorder. This leads to some peculiar phenomena such as the creation of BG of singlets, for very strong spin correlation, or the disappearance of BG phase in some particular cases where fluctuations are not able to mix different MI regions

Shot Noise at High Temperatures

We consider the possibility of measuring non-equilibrium properties of the current correlation functions at high temperatures (and small bias). Through the example of the third cumulant of the current (${\cal{S}}_3$) we demonstrate that odd order correlation functions represent non-equilibrium physics even at small external bias and high temperatures. We calculate ${\cal{S}}_3=y(eV/T) e^2 I$ for a quasi-one-dimensional diffusive constriction. We calculate the scaling function $y$ in two regimes: when the scattering processes are purely elastic and when the inelastic electron-electron scattering is strong. In both cases we find that $y$ interpolates between two constants. In the low (high) temperature limit $y$ is strongly (weakly) enhanced (suppressed) by the electron-electron scattering.Comment: 11 pages 4 fig. submitted to Phys. Rev.

Decoherence in Disordered Conductors at Low Temperatures, the effect of Soft Local Excitations

The conduction electrons' dephasing rate, $\tau_{\phi}^{-1}$, is expected to vanish with the temperature. A very intriguing apparent saturation of this dephasing rate in several systems was recently reported at very low temperatures. The suggestion that this represents dephasing by zero-point fluctuations has generated both theoretical and experimental controversies. We start by proving that the dephasing rate must vanish at the $T\to 0$ limit, unless a large ground state degeneracy exists. This thermodynamic proof includes most systems of relevance and it is valid for any determination of $\tau_{\phi}$ from {\em linear} transport measurements. In fact, our experiments demonstrate unequivocally that indeed when strictly linear transport is used, the apparent low-temperature saturation of $\tau_{\phi}$ is eliminated. However, the conditions to be in the linear transport regime are more strict than hitherto expected. Another novel result of the experiments is that introducing heavy nonmagnetic impurities (gold) in our samples produces, even in linear transport, a shoulder in the dephasing rate at very low temperatures. We then show theoretically that low-lying local defects may produce a relatively large dephasing rate at low temperatures. However, as expected, this rate in fact vanishes when $T \to 0$, in agreement with our experimental observations.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the Euresco Conference on Fundamental Problems of Mesoscopic Physics, Granada, September 2003, Kluwe

Quantum noise in current biased Josephson junction

Quantum fluctuations in a current biased Josephson junction, described in terms of the RCSJ-model, are considered. The fluctuations of the voltage and phase across the junction are assumed to be initiated by equilibrium current fluctuations in the shunting resistor. This corresponds to low enough temperatures, when fluctuations of the normal current in the junction itself can be neglected. We used the quantum Langevin equation in terms of random variables related to the limit cycle of the nonlinear Josephson oscillator. This allows to go beyond the perturbation theory and calculate the widths of the Josephson radiation lines