We evaluate the joint distributions of electron waiting times in coherent conductors described by scattering theory. Successive electron waiting times in a single-channel conductor are found to be correlated due to the fermionic statistics encoded in the many-body state. Our formalism allows us also to investigate the waiting times between charge transfer events in different outgoing channels. As an application we consider a quantum point contact in a chiral setup with one or both input channels biased by either a static or a time-dependent periodic voltage described by Floquet theory. The theoretical framework developed here can be applied to a variety of scattering problems and can in a straightforward manner be extended to joint distributions of several electron waiting times.
We present a Floquet scattering theory of electron waiting time distributions in periodically driven quantum conductors. We employ a second-quantized formulation that allows us to relate the waiting time distribution to the Floquet scattering matrix of the system. As an application we evaluate the electron waiting times for a quantum point contact, modulating either the applied voltage (external driving) or the transmission probability (internal driving) periodically in time. Lorentzian-shaped voltage pulses are of particular interest as they lead to the emission of clean single-particle excit…
The electron waiting time is the time that passes between two subsequent charge transfers in an electronic conductor. Recently, theories of electron waiting times have been devised for quantum transport in Coulomb-blockade structures and for mesoscopic conductors, however, so far a proper description of a detector has been missing. Here we develop a quantum theory of a waiting time clock capable of measuring the distribution of waiting times between electrons above the Fermi sea in a mesoscopic conductor. The detector consists of a mesoscopic capacitor coupled to a quantum two-level system who…
The distribution of electron waiting times is useful to characterize quantum transport in mesoscopic structures. Here we consider a generic quantum-coherent conductor consisting of a mesoscopic scatterer in a two-terminal setup. We extend earlier results for single-channel conductors to setups with several (possibly spin-degenerate) conduction channels and we discuss the effect of a finite electronic temperature. We present detailed investigations of the electron waiting times in a quantum point contact as well as in two mesoscopic interferometers with energy-dependent transmissions: a Fabry-P…
Electron transport in mesoscopic conductors has traditionally involved investigations of the mean current and the fluctuations of the current. A complementary view on charge transport is provided by the distribution of waiting times between charge carriers, but a proper theoretical framework for coherent electronic systems has so far been lacking. Here we develop a quantum theory of electron waiting times in mesoscopic conductors expressed by a compact determinant formula. We illustrate our methodology by calculating the waiting time distribution for a quantum point contact and find a cross-ov…
The development of single-electron sources has paved the way for a novel type of experiments in which individual electrons are emitted into a quantum-coherent circuit. In one approach, single-electron excitations are generated by applying Lorentzian-shaped voltage pulses to a contact. Here, we propose to use such voltage pulses for electronic spectroscopy of mesoscopic devices. Specifically, we show how characteristic timescales of a quantum-coherent conductor can be extracted from the distribution of waiting times between charge pulses propagating through a mesoscopic circuit. To illustrate o…
Electron waiting times are an important concept in the analysis of quantum transport in nano-scale conductors. Here we show that the statistics of electron waiting times can be used to characterize Cooper pair splitters that create spatially separated spin-entangled electrons. A short waiting time between electrons tunneling into different leads is associated with the fast emission of a split Cooper pair, while long waiting times are governed by the slow injection of Cooper pairs from a superconductor. Experimentally, the waiting time distributions can be measured using real-time single-electr…
We calculate the fluctuating voltage V(t) over a conductor driven out of equilibrium by a current source. This is the dual of the shot noise problem of current fluctuations I(t) in a voltage-biased circuit. In the single-channel case the distribution of the accumulated phase Phi=(e/hbar)\int Vdt is the Pascal (or binomial waiting-time) distribution -- distinct from the binomial distribution of transferred charge Q=\int Idt. The weak-coupling limit of a Poissonian P(Phi) is reached in the limit of a ballistic conductor, while in the tunneling limit P(Phi) has the chi-square form.
The distribution of waiting times between elementary tunneling events is of fundamental importance for understanding the stochastic charge transfer processes in nanoscale conductors. Here we investigate the waiting time distributions (WTDs) of periodically driven single-electron emitters and evaluate them for the specific example of a mesoscopic capacitor. We show that the WTDs provide a particularly informative characterization of periodically driven devices and we demonstrate how the WTDs allow us to reconstruct the full counting statistics (FCS) of charges that have been transferred after a…
We show that a one dimensional disordered conductor with correlated disorder has an extended state and a Landauer resistance that is non-zero in the limit of infinite system size in contrast to the predictions of the scaling theory of Anderson localization. The delocalization transition is not related to any underlying symmetry of the model such as particle-hole symmetry. For a wire of finite length the effect manifests as a sharp transmission resonance that narrows as the length of the wire is increased. Experimental realizations and applications are discussed including the possibility of con…
Distributions of electron waiting times have been measured in several recent experiments and have been shown to provide complementary information compared to what can be learned from the electric current fluctuations. Existing theories, however, are restricted to either weakly coupled nanostructures or phase-coherent transport in mesoscopic conductors. Here, we consider an interacting quantum dot and develop a real-time diagrammatic theory of waiting time distributions that can treat the interesting regime, in which both interaction effects and higher-order tunneling processes are important. S…
We consider the distribution of waiting times between non-interacting fermions on a tight-binding chain. We calculate the waiting time distribution for a quantum point contact and find a cross-over from Wigner-Dyson statistics at full transmission to Poisson statistics close to pinch-off as predicted by scattering theory. In addition, we consider several quantum dot structures for which we can associate oscillations in the waiting time distributions to internal energy scales of the scatterers. A detailed comparison with scattering theory and generalized master equations is provided. We focus o…
In ultrathin wires positioned on high-k dielectric substrates or nearby metallic gates electrons can form strongly correlated one-dimensional fluids already at rather high electron densities. The density-density correlation function, charge compressibility, spin susceptibility, and electron specific heat of such fluids are calculated analytically. The results are relevant for transport and thermodynamics of novel carbon nanotube field-effect transistors and semiconductor quantum wires.
Quantum shot noise probes the dynamics of charge transfers through a quantum conductor, reflecting whether quasiparticles flow across the conductor in a steady stream, or in syncopated bursts. We have performed high-sensitivity shot noise measurements in a quantum dot obtained in a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. The quality of our device allows us to precisely associate the different transport regimes and their statistics with the internal state of the quantum dot. In particular, we report on large current fluctuations in the inelastic cotunneling regime, correspond…
A general nonperturbative theory of the low-energy electron propagator is developed and used to calculate the single-particle density of states in a variety of systems. This method involves the decoupling of the electron-electron interaction through a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, followed by a saddle-point approximation of the remaining functional integral. The final expression is found to be the tunneling analog of the infrared catastrophe that occurs in the x-ray edge problem; here, the host system responds to the potential produced by the abrupt addition of an electron during a tunn…
The electron transport in a 1D conductor with an isolated local defect such as an impurity or a non-adiabatic contact is studied theoretically. New regime of conduction in correlated 1D systems is predicted beyond the well-known regime of tunneling resulting in the power-law I-V-curves. In this regime a quantum wire becomes "opened" at voltage biases above the threshold value $V_T$, giving rise to a rapid increase of the dc current, $\bar I$, accompanied by ac oscillations of frequency $f = \bar I/e$. The effect of ac generation is related to sliding of the Friedel oscillations of electronic d…
We study the electronic waiting time distributions (WTDs) in a non-interacting quantum dot spin valve by varying spin polarization and the noncollinear angle between the magnetizations of the leads using scattering matrix approach. Since the quantum dot spin valve involves two channels (spin up and down) in both the incoming and outgoing channels, we study three different kinds of WTDs, which are two-channel WTD, spin-resolved single-channel WTD and cross-channel WTD. We analyze the behaviors of WTDs in short times, correlated with the current behaviors for different spin polarizations and non…
An electron is usually considered to have only one form of kinetic energy, but could it have more, for its spin and charge, by exciting other electrons? In one dimension (1D), the physics of interacting electrons is captured well at low energies by the Tomonaga-Luttinger model, yet little has been observed experimentally beyond this linear regime. Here, we report on measurements of many-body modes in 1D gated-wires using tunnelling spectroscopy. We observe two parabolic dispersions, indicative of separate Fermi seas at high energies, associated with spin and charge excitations, together with t…
Quantum transport of electrons through a molecule is a series of individual electron tunnelling events separated by stochastic waiting time intervals. We study the emergence of temporal correlations between successive waiting times for the electron transport in a vibrating molecular junction. Using master equation approach, we compute joint probability distribution for waiting times of two successive tunnelling events. We show that the probability distribution is completely reset after each tunnelling event if molecular vibrations are thermally equilibrated. If we treat vibrational dynamics ex…
We consider a one-channel coherent conductor with a good transmission embedded into an ohmic environment whose impedance is equal to the quantum of resistance R_q=h/e^2 below the RC frequency. This choice is motivated by the mapping of this problem to a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid with one impurity whose interaction parameter corresponds to the specific value K=1/2, allowing for a refermionization procedure. The "new" fermions have an energy-dependent transmission amplitude which incorporates the strong correlation effects and yields the exact dc current and zero-frequency noise through expressi…
We develop a nonperturbative method to calculate the electron propagator in low-dimensional and strongly correlated electron systems. The method builds on our earlier work using a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to map the tunneling problem to the x-ray edge problem, which accounts for the infrared catastrophe caused by the sudden introduction of a new electron into a conductor during a tunneling event. Here we use a cumulant expansion to include fluctuations about this x-ray edge limit. We find that the dominant effect of electron-electron interaction at low energies is to correct the non…
The coherence and phase evolution of electrons in a mesoscopic system in the Kondo correlated regime were studied. The Kondo effect, in turn, is one of the most fundamental many-body effects where a localized spin interacts with conduction electrons in a conductor. Results were obtained by embedding a quantum dot (QD) in a double path electronic interferometer and measuring interference of electron waves. The Phase was found to evolve in a range twice as large as the theoretically predicted one. Moreover, the phase proved to be highly sensitive to the onset of Kondo correlation, thus serving a…
We study theoretically the electron transport in a 1D conductor adiabatically connected to a superconducting and normal metal leads. In the case of non-interacting we show that ac voltage applied along with dc voltage modifies I-V curve resembling a regime of photon-assisted tunneling. We obtain in the limit of low voltages, that the electron-electron interaction affects electronic transport resulting in a decrease of conductance and features in the frequency dependence of the impedance.
Transport characteristics of pure narrow 2D-conductors, in which the electron scattering is caused by rough side boundaries, have been studied. The conductance of such strips is highly sensitive to the intercorrelation properties of inhomogeneities of the opposite edges. The case with completely correlated statistically identical boundaries (CCB) is a peculiar one. Herein the electron scattering is uniquely due to fluctuations of the asperity slope and is not related to the strip width fluctuations. Owing to this, the electron relaxation lengths, specifically the localization length, depend qu…
The interplay between vibrational modes and Kondo physics is a fundamental aspect of transport properties of correlated molecular conductors. We present theoretical results for a single molecule in the Kondo regime connected to left and right metallic leads, creating the usual coupling to a conduction channel with left-right parity ("even"). A center-of-mass vibrational mode introduces an additional, phonon-assisted, tunneling through the antisymmetric ("odd") channel. A non-Fermi liquid fixed point, reminiscent of the two-channel Kondo effect, appears at a critical value of the phonon-mediate…
Ionic liquid gating has become a popular tool for tuning the charge carrier densities of complex oxides. Among these the band insulator SrTiO$_3$ is one of the most extensively studied materials. While experiments have succeeded in inducing (super)conductivity, the process by which ionic liquid gating turns this insulator into a conductor is still under scrutiny. Recent experiments have suggested an electrochemical rather than electrostatic origin of the induced charge carriers. Here, we report experiments probing the time evolution of conduction of SrTiO$_3$ near the glass transition temperat…
