We have analyzed the spectral density of fluctuations of the energy flux through a mesoscopic constriction between two equilibrium reservoirs. It is shown that at finite frequencies, the fluctuating energy flux is not related to the thermal conductance of the constriction by the standard fluctuation-dissipation theorem, but contains additional noise. The main physical consequence of this extra noise is that the fluctuations do not vanish at zero temperature together with the vanishing thermal conductance.
In the wake of a new kind of phase generally occurring in mesoscopic transport phenomena, we discuss the validity of Friedel sum rule in the presence of this phase. We find that the general Friedel sum rule may be violated.
A method to calculate the statistics of energy exchange between quantum systems is presented. The generating function of this statistics is expressed through a Keldysh path integral. The method is first applied to the problem of heat dissipation from a biased mesoscopic conductor into the adjacent reservoirs. We then consider energy dissipation in an electrical circuit around a mesoscopic conductor. We derive the conditions under which measurements of the fluctuations of heat dissipation can be used to investigate higher order cumulants of the charge counting statistics of a mesoscopic conduct…
We first present a summary of recent results concerning the phononic energy transport properties of mesoscopic, suspended dielectric wires. We then discuss some related open problems concerning the fundamental lower limits on the vibrational damping rates of submicron-sized cantilever structures and also the possibility to create and detect quantum superpositions of spatially separated states for such structures.
The response of mesoscopic superconductors to an ac magnetic field is investigated both experimentally and with numerical simulations. We study small square samples with dimensions of the order of the penetration depth. We obtain the ac susceptibitity $χ=χ'+iχ''$ at microwave frequencies as a function of the dc magnetic field $H_{dc}$. We find that the dissipation, given by $χ''$, has a non monotonous behavior in mesoscopic samples. In the numerical simulations we obtain that the dissipation increases before the penetration of vortices and then it decreases abruptly after vortices have entered…
The standard physical model of contemporary mesoscopic noise and transport consists in a phenomenologically based approach, proposed originally by Landauer and since continued and amplified by Buettiker (and others). Throughout all the years of its gestation and growth, it is surprising that the Landauer-Buettiker approach to mesoscopics has matured with scant attention to the conservation properties lying at its roots: that is, at the level of actual microscopic principles. We systematically apply the conserving sum rules for the electron gas to clarify this fundamental issue within the stand…
In this work we study the ac dissipation of mesoscopic superconductors at microwave frequencies using the time dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations. Our numerical simulations show that the ac dissipation is strongly dependent on the orientation of the ac magnetic field ($h_{ac}$) relative to the dc magnetic field ($H_{dc}$). When $h_{ac}$ is parallel to $H_{dc}$ we observe that each vortex penetration event produces a significant supression of the ac losses because the imaginary part of the ac susceptibility as a function of $H_{dc}$ increases before the penetration of vortices, and then it dec…
We consider mesoscopic non-superconducting rings with an effective capacitance. We propose a Hamiltonian model describing magnetic flux in such rings. Next we incorporate dissipation and thermal fluctuations into our kinetic model. We consider kinetics in limiting regimes of strong and weak coupling to thermal bath.
We propose a spin-independent scheme to generate and detect two-particle entanglement in a mesoscopic normal-superconductor system. A superconductor, weakly coupled to the normal conductor, generates an orbitally entangled state by injecting pairs of electrons into different leads of the normal conductor. The entanglement is detected via violation of a Bell inequality, formulated in terms of zero-frequency current cross-correlators. It is shown that the Bell inequality can be violated for arbitrary strong dephasing in the normal conductor.
Driven chaotic systems are of interest in mesoscopic physics, as well as in nuclear, atomic and molecular physics. Such systems [coordinates $(Q,P)$]$ tend to absorb energy. This irreversible effect is known as dissipation. "Driving" means that a parameter $x$ is changed in time. More generally, $x$ may be a dynamical variable. In such case the interaction of $(x,p)$ with the environmental degrees of freedom $(Q,P)$ leads to dephasing as well as to dissipation. We introduce a general framework for the analysis of dissipation and dephasing, and we clarify the tight connection to recent studies …
Spectroscopy of Heat Transport and Violation of the Wiedemann--Franz Law in a GaAs Hydrodynamic Mesoscopic Channel
São Carlos Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo（圣保罗大学圣卡洛斯物理研究所）；Physics Department, Federal University of São Carlos（圣卡洛斯联邦大学物理系）；Ioffe Institute（约费研究所）；Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo（圣保罗大学物理研究所）；Institute of Semiconductor Physics（半导体物理研究所）
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of a mesoscopic metallic ring threaded by a time-dependent magnetic field and coupled to an electronic reservoir. We analyze the relation between the (non-stationary) real-time Keldysh and retarded Green functions and we find that, in the linear response regime with weak heat transfer to the environment, an effective temperature accounts for the modification of the equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation relation. We discuss possible extensions of this analysis.
We have experimentally studied the energy levels of a mesoscopic SQUID using inelastic Cooper-pair tunneling. The tunneling in a small Josephson junction depends strongly on its electromagnetic environment. We use this fact to do energy level spectroscopy of a SQUID-loop by coupling it to a small junction. Our samples with strong quasiparticle dissipation are well described by a model of a particle localized in one of the dips in a cosine-potential, while in the samples with weak dissipation we can see formation of energy bands.
We study the energy dissipation rate in a mesoscopic system described by the parametrically-driven random-matrix Hamiltonian H[ϕ(t)] for the case of linear bias ϕ=vt. Evolution of the field ϕ(t) causes interlevel transitions leading to energy pumping, and also smears the discrete spectrum of the Hamiltonian. For sufficiently fast perturbation this smearing exceeds the mean level spacing and the dissipation rate is given by the Kubo formula. We calculate the quantum correction to the Kubo result that reveals the original discreteness of the energy spectrum. The first correction to the system vi…
Using the path integral approach to equilibrium statistical physics the effect of dissipation on Landau diamagnetism is calculated. The calculation clarifies the essential role of the boundary of the container in which the electrons move. Further, the derived result for diamagnetization also matches with the expression obtained from a time-dependent quantum Langevin equation in the asymptotic limit, provided a certain order is maintained in taking limits. This identification then unifies equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical physics for a phenomenon like diamagnetism, which is inherently …
We analyze the effect of decoherence on the violation of the Clauser-Horne (CH) inequality for the full electron counting statistics in a mesoscopic multiterminal conductor. Our setup consists of an entangler that emits a flux of entangled electrons into two conductors characterized by a scattering matrix and subject to decoherence. Loss of phase memory is modeled phenomenologically by introducing fictitious extra leads. The outgoing electrons are detected using spin-sensitive electron counters. Given a certain average number of incoming entangled electrons, the CH inequality is evaluated as a…
We study a model of isothermal steady-state work-to-work converter, where a single quantum two-level system (TLS) driven by time-dependent periodic external fields acts as the working medium and is permanently put in contact with a thermal reservoir at fixed temperature $T$. By combining Short-Iterative Lanczos (SIL) method and analytic approaches, we study the converter performance in the linear response regime and in a wide range of driving frequencies, from weak to strong dissipation. We show that for our ideal quantum machine several parameter ranges exist where a violation of Thermodynami…
We investigate the behavior of a circuit QED device when the resonator is initially populated with a mesoscopic coherent field. The strong coupling between the cavity and the qubit produces an entangled state involving mesoscopic quasi-pointer states with respect to cavity dissipation. The overlap of the associated field components results in collapse and revivals for the Rabi oscillation. Although qubit relaxation and dephasing do not preserve these states, a simple analytical description of the dissipative dynamics of the circuit QED device including cavity relaxation as well as qubit dissip…
In this paper we derive the Clauser-Horne (CH) inequality for the full electron counting statistics in a mesoscopic multiterminal conductor and we discuss its properties. We first consider the idealized situation in which a flux of entangled electrons is generated by an entangler. Given a certain average number of incoming entangled electrons, the CH inequality can be evaluated for different numbers of transmitted particles. Strong violations occur when the number of transmitted charges on the two terminals is the same ($Q_1=Q_2$), whereas no violation is found for $Q_1\ne Q_2$. We then consid…
It is shown that the nonequilibrium steady-state of a phase-coherent conductor can be described by a generalized thermodynamic potential based on the concept of partial densities of states. This is possible due to the fact that dissipation takes place only in the contacts for the emitted carriers. Long-range Coulomb interaction is included, and charge conservation and gauge invariance are satisfied. The theory is illustrated for a mesoscopic capacitor with leakage.
There are three regimes in the theory of energy absorption: The adiabatic regime, the linear-response (Kubo) regime, and the non-perturbative regime. The mesoscopic Drude formula for electrical conductance, and the wall formula for friction, can be regarded as special cases of the general formulation of the dissipation problem. The overview is based on a research report for 1998-2000.
Coulomb screening, together with degeneracy, is characteristic of the metallic electron gas. While there is little trace of its effects in transport and noise in the bulk, at mesoscopic scales the electronic fluctuations start to show appreciable Coulomb correlations. Within a strictly standard Boltzmann and Fermi-liquid framework, we analyze these phenomena and their relation to the mesoscopic fluctuation-dissipation theorem, which we prove. We identify two distinct screening mechanisms for mesoscopic fluctuations. One is the self-consistent response of the contact potential in a non-uniform …
The interplay of quantum fluctuations and dissipation in chains of mesoscopic superconducting grains is analyzed, and the results are also applied to nanowires. It is shown that in 1-d arrays of resistively shunted Josephson junctions, the superconducting-normal charge relaxation within the grains plays an important role. At zero temperature, two superconducting phases can exist, depending primarily on the strength of the dissipation. In the fully superconducting phase (FSC), each grain acts superconducting, and the coupling to the dissipative conduction is important. In the SC* phase, the dis…
While dissipation is widely considered as being harmful for quantum coherence, it can, when properly engineered, lead to the stabilization of non-trivial pure quantum states. We propose a scheme for continuous generation and stabilization of Schrödinger cat states in a cavity using dissipation engineering. We first generate non-classical photon states with definite parity by means of a two-photon drive and dissipation, and then stabilize these transient states against single-photon decay. The single-photon stabilization is autonomous, and is implemented through a second engineered bath, which …
We calculate the tunnelling resistance at the quantum critical point of a mesoscopic SQUIDs array in the presence of magnetic flux. We find the analytical relation between the magnetic flux induced dissipation strength and the Luttinger liquid parameter of the system. While the experimental finding for the system is around 40-50 mK, we find the behavior of the system even at lower temperatures through the analysis of renormalization group. Apart from the length scale dependent superconductor-insulator transition, we also predict the evidence of length scale independent metallic state. This stu…
We propose a scheme for dynamically creating orbitally entangled electron-hole pairs through a time-dependent variation of the electrical potential in a mesoscopic conductor. The time-dependent potential generates a superposition of electron-hole pairs in two different orbital regions of the conductor, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer in the quantum Hall regime. The orbital entanglement is detected via violation of a Bell inequality, formulated in terms of zero-frequency current noise. Adiabatic cycling of the potential, both in the weak and strong amplitude limit, is considered.
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT) plays a fundamental role in understanding quantum many-body problems. However, its applicability is limited to equilibrium systems and it does in general not hold in nonequilibrium situations. This violation of the FDT is an important tool for studying nonequilibrium physics. In this paper we present results for the violation of the FDT in the Kondo model where the impurity spin is frozen for all negative times, and set free to relax at positive times. We derive exact analytical results at the Toulouse point, and results within a controlled approximati…
Models of nonequilibrium quantum transport underpin all modern electronic devices, from the largest scales to the smallest. Past simplifications such as coarse graining and bulk self-averaging served well to understand electronic materials. Such particular notions become inapplicable at mesoscopic dimensions, edging towards the truly quantum regime. Nevertheless a unifying thread continues to run through transport physics, animating the design of small-scale electronic technology: microscopic conservation and nonequilibrium dissipation. These fundamentals are inherent in quantum transport and …
We study the effect of mesoscopic fluctuations on the validity of the Wiedemann--Franz (WF) law for quasi-one-dimensional metal wires and open quantum dots. At temperatures much less than the generalized Thouless energy, E_c, the WF law is satisfied for each specific sample but as the temperature is raised through E_c a sample-specific correction to the WF law of order 1/g appears (g is the dimensionless conductance) and then tends to zero again at high temperatures. The mesoscopic violation of the Weidemann-Franz law is even more pronounced in a ring geometry, for which Lorenz number exhibits…
We study the dissipation of diffuse ultrasonic energy in a reverberant body coupled to a waveguide, an analog for a mesoscopic electron in a quantum dot. A simple model predicts a Porter-Thomas like distribution of level widths and corresponding nonexponential dissipation, a behavior largely confirmed by measurements. For the case of fully open channels, however, measurements deviate from this model to a statistically significant degree. A random matrix supersymmetric calculation is found to accurately model the observed behaviors at all coupling strengths.
Energy dissipation in a nonequilibrium steady state is studied in driven quantum Langevin systems. We study energy dissipation flow to thermal environment, and obtain a general formula for the average rate of energy dissipation using an autocorrelation function for the system variable. This leads to a general expression of the equality that connects the violation of the fluctuation-response relation to the rate of energy dissipation, the classical version of which was first studied by Harada and Sasa. We also point out that the expression depends on coupling form between system and reservoir.
We calculate the frequency-dependent equilibrium noise of a mesoscopic capacitor in time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). The capacitor is modeled as a single-level quantum dot with on-site Coulomb interaction and tunnel coupling to a nearby reservoir. The noise spectra are derived from linear-response conductances via the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. Thereby, we analyze the performance of a recently derived exchange-correlation potential with time-nonlocal density dependence in the finite-frequency linear-response regime. We compare our TDDFT noise spectra with real-time pertu…
A mesoscopic hybrid Normal/ Superconducting (NS) ring is characterized by a dense Andreev spectrum with a flux dependent minigap. We measure the linear response to a high frequency flux, in a wide frequency range, with a multimode superconducting resonator. We find that the current response contains, beside the well known dissipation-less Josephson contribution, a large dissipative component. At high frequency compared to the minigap and low temperature we find that the dissipation is due to transitions above the minigap. In contrast, at lower frequency there is range of temperature for which …
Current noise is measured with a SQUID in low impedance and transparent Nb-Al-Nb j unctions of length comparable to the phase breaking length and much longer than the thermal length. The shot noise amplitude is compared with theoretical predictions of doubled shot noise in diffusive normal/superconductor (NS) junctions due to the Andreev reflections. We discuss the heat dissipation away from the normal part through the NS interfaces. A weak applied magnetic field reduces the amplitude of the 1/f noise by a factor of two, showing that even far from equilibrium the sample is in the mesoscopic re…
We present results for the dynamics of an impurity spin coupled to a magnetic field and to two ohmic baths which are out-of equilibrium due to the application of a bias voltage. Both the non-equilibrium steady state and the rate constants describing the approach to steady state are found to depend sensitively on the relative strengths of a magnetic field and a voltage dependent decoherence rate. Computation of physical quantities including the frequency dependent ratio of response to correlation functions and the probabilities of the two spin states allows the extraction of voltage dependent e…
One of the best known causes of dissipation in ac driven quantum systems stems from photon absorption. Dissipation can also be caused by the retarded response to the time-dependent excitation, and in general gives insight into the system's relaxation times and mechanisms. We address the dissipation in a mesoscopic normal wire with superconducting contacts, that sustains a supercurrent at zero frequency and that may be expected to remain dissipationless at frequency lower than the superconducting gap. We probe the high frequency linear response of a Normal/Superconductor ring to a time-dependen…
The understanding of mesoscopic transport has now attained an ultimate simplicity. Indeed, orthodox quantum kinetics would seem to say little about mesoscopics that has not been revealed - nearly effortlessly - by more popular means. Such is far from the case, however. The fact that kinetic theory remains very much in charge is best appreciated through the physics of a quantum point contact. While discretization of its conductance is viewed as the exclusive result of coherent, single-electron-wave transmission, this does not begin to address the paramount feature of all metallic conduction: di…
Where, and how, does energy dissipation of electrical energy take place in a ballistic wire? Fully two decades after the advent of the transmissive phenomenology of electrical conductance, this deceptively simple query remains unanswered. We revisit the quantum kinetic basis of dissipation and show its power to give a definitive answer to our query. Dissipation leaves a clear, quantitative trace in the non-equilibrium current noise of a quantum point contact; this signature has already been observed in the laboratory. We then highlight the current state of accepted understandings in the light …
A review of coherent and collective quantum optical effects like superradiance and coherent population trapping in mesoscopic systems is presented. Various new physical realizations of these phenomena are discussed, with a focus on their role for electronic transport and quantum dissipation in coupled nano-scale systems like quantum dots. A number of theoretical tools such as Master equations, polaron transformations, correlation functions, or level statistics are used to describe recent work on dissipative charge qubits (double quantum dots), the Dicke effect, phonon cavities, single oscillat…
Mesoscopic conductance fluctuations are a ubiquitous signature of phase-coherent transport in small conductors, exhibiting universal character independent of system details. In this work, however, we demonstrate a pronounced breakdown of this universality, due to the interplay of local and remote phenomena in transport. Our experiments are performed in a graphene-based interaction-detection geometry, in which an artificial magnetic texture is induced in the graphene layer by covering a portion of it with a micromagnet. When probing conduction at some distance from this region, the strong influ…
Almost a century ago, Johnson and Nyquist presented evidence of fluctuating electrical current and the governing fluctuation dissipation theorem (FDT). Whether, likewise, temperature T can fluctuate is a controversial topic and has led to scientific debates for several decades. To resolve this issue, there was an experiment initially in 1992 where the authors found good agreement between the FDT theory for heat and experiment on a macroscopic sample. A key question is what happens when we consider a nanoscale system with much fewer particles at 100 times lower temperatures. This challenge has …
We analyse high-field current fluctuations in metallic systems by direct mapping of the Fermi-liquid correlations to the semiclassical nonequilibrium state. We give three applications. First, for bulk conductors, we show that there is a unique nonequilibrium analogue to the fluctuation-dissipation theorem for thermal noise. With it, we calculate suppression of the excess hot-electron term by Pauli exclusion. Second, in the degenerate regime, we argue that shot noise and thermal noise are incommensurate. They cannot be connected by a smooth, universal interpolation formula. This follows from th…
Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe (AOC) theorem establishes that the ground state of the many-body fermion system is asymptotically orthogonal to the ground state of the same system perturbed by a scattering potential, so that the overlap between the original and new ground states decays to zero with the system size. We adopt the AOC for a description of heat production in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistor. We find that the heat released in the transistor comprises two distinct components, contribution from the dissipation accompanying electron transmission under t…
A brief overview is presented of recent work which investigates the time-dependent relaxation of charge and its spontaneous fluctuations on mesoscopic conductors in the proximity of gates. The leading terms of the low frequency conductance are determined by a capacitive or inductive emittance and a dissipative charge relaxation resistance. The charge relaxation resistance is determined by the ratio of the mean square dwell time of the carriers in the conductor and the square of the mean dwell time. The contribution of each scattering channel is proportional to half a resistance quantum. We dis…
We make a distinction between the spectroscopic and the mesoscopic conductance of closed systems. We show that the latter is not simply related to the Landauer conductance of the corresponding open system. A new ingredient in the theory is related to the non-universal structure of the perturbation matrix which is generic for quantum chaotic systems. These structures may created bottlenecks that suppress the diffusion in energy space, and hence the rate of energy absorption. The resulting effect is not merely quantitative: For a ring-dot system we find that a smaller Landauer conductance implie…
Experimental results obtained last years corroborate a prediction made by I.O. Kulik forty years ago that the energy dissipation does not result in disappearance of equilibrium circular current observable in the normal state of superconductor rings and normal metal rings. Contrary interpretations of the persistent current as a Brownian motion or a dissipationless current are compared in the point of view of the observations of this phenomenon at presence of an electric potential difference. Distinctions between the quantum phenomena at atomic and mesoscopic levels are accentuated. In connectio…
We study theoretically dynamic response of a mesoscopic capacitor, which consists of a quantum dot connected to an electron reservoir via a point contact and capacitively coupled to a gate voltage. A quantum Hall edge state with a filling factor nu is realized in a strong magnetic field applied perpendicular to the two-dimensional electron gas. We discuss a noise-driven quantum phase transition of the transport property of the edge state by taking into account an ohmic bath connected to the gate voltage. Without the noise, the charge relaxation for nu>1/2 is universally quantized at R_q=h/(2e^…
The standard treatment of quantum corrections to semiclassical electronic conduction assumes that charge carriers propagate many wavelengths between scattering events, and succeeds in explaining multiple phenomena (weak localization magnetoresistance (WLMR), universal conductance fluctuations, Aharonov-Bohm oscillations) observed in polycrystalline metals and doped semiconductors in various dimensionalities. We report apparent WLMR and conductance fluctuations in H$_{x}$VO$_{2}$, a poor metal (in violation of the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit) stabilized by the suppression of the VO$_{2}$ metal-insul…
The IP-theorem of the Kohn-Sham (KS) density functional theory (DFT) states that the energy of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) $ε_{HOMO}$ equals the negative of the first ionization potential (IP), thus ascribing a physical meaning to one of the eigenvalues of the KS hamiltonian. We scrutinize the fact that the validity of the IP-theorem relies critically on the electron density $n({\bf r})$, far from the system, to be determined by HOMO only, behaving as $n({\bf r}) \underset{r\to\infty}{\sim} e^{- 2 \sqrt{-2 ε_{HOMO}} r}$. While this behavior always holds for finite systems, it…
A general non-linear response theory is derived for an arbitrary time-dependent Hamiltonian, not necessarily obeying time-reversal symmetry. This allows us to obtain a greatly generalized Kubo type formula. Applied to a mesoscopic system with any type of interactions, and coupled to multiple probes and gates with arbitrarily time-dependent voltages, we derive current-conserving differential conductance and current fluctuation matrices obeying a generalized Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem. This relation provides a common explanation for asymmetries of the excess noise in several non-linear meso…
We study the optomechanical properties of stoichiometric SiN resonators through a combination of spectroscopic and interferometric imaging techniques. At room temperature, we demonstrate ultrahigh quality factors of $5 \times 10^7$ and a $f \times Q$ product of $1 \times 10^{14}$ Hz that, to our knowledge, correspond to the largest values yet reported for mesoscopic flexural resonators. Through a comprehensive study of the limiting dissipation mechanisms as a function of resonator and substrate geometry, we identify radiation loss through the supporting substrate as the dominant loss process. …
Nanomechanics has brought mesoscopic physics into the world of vibrations. Because nanomechanical systems are small, fluctuations are significant, the vibrations become nonlinear already for comparatively small amplitudes, and new mechanisms of dissipation come into play. At the same time, the exquisite control of these systems makes them a platform for studying many problems of classical and quantum physics far from thermal equilibrium in a well-characterized setting. This review describes, at a conceptual level, basic theoretical ideas and explicative experiments pertaining to mesoscopic phy…
We demonstrate the emergence and dynamics of intra-particle entanglement in massless Dirac fermions. This entanglement, generated by spin-orbit coupling, arises between the spin and sublattice pseudospin of electrons in graphene. The entanglement is a complex dynamic quantity but is generally large, independent of the initial state. Its time dependence implies a dynamical violation of a Bell inequality, while its magnitude indicates that large intra-particle entanglement is a general feature of graphene on a substrate. These features are also expected to impact entanglement between pairs of pa…
Mesoscopic routers and single-pole double-throw switches for electronic heat
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学）；Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学凝聚态物理中心（IFIMAC））；Instituto Nicolás Cabrera (INC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学尼古拉斯·卡布雷拉研究所（INC））
The validity of the Second Law of thermodynamics, indisputable in the macroscopic world, is challenged at the mesoscopic level: a mesoscopic isolated system, possessing spatial dimensions of the order of a few microns, is capable, as shown by a straightforward kinetic analysis, to exhibit a perpetuum mobile behavior associated with large negative variations of the Clausius entropy of the system. This violation of the Second Law is expedient for devising a cyclic process through which an isolated system can extract energy from a surrounding thermal bath.
