Unusual decoherence in qubit measurements with a Bose-Einstein condensate

We consider an electrostatic qubit located near a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of noninteracting bosons in a double-well potential, which is used for qubit measurements. Tracing out the BEC variables we obtain a simple analytical expression for the qubit's density-matrix. The qubit's evolution exhibits a slow ($\propto1/\sqrt{t}$) damping of the qubit's coherence term, which however turns to be a Gaussian one in the case of static qubit. This stays in contrast to the exponential damping produced by most classical detectors. The decoherence is, in general, incomplete and strongly depends on the initial state of the qubit.Comment: 5 pages, additional explanations related to experimental realization are added, typos corrected, Phys. Rev. A, in pres

Rate equations for quantum transport in multi-dot systems

Starting with the many-body Schr\"odinger equation we derive new rate equations for resonant transport in quantum dots linked by ballistic channels with high density of states. The charging and the Pauli exclusion principle effects were taken into account. It is shown that the current in such a system displays quantum coherence effects, even if the dots are away one from another. A comparative analysis of quantum coherence effects in coupled and separated dots is presented. The rate equations are extended for description of coherent and incoherent transport in arbitrary multi-dot systems. It is demonstrated that new rate equations constitute a generalization of the well-known optical Bloch equations.Comment: Results are presented in more transparent way. Additional explanations and figures are included. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Relaxation and Zeno effect in qubit measurements

We consider a qubit interacting with its environment and continuously monitored by a detector represented by a point contact. Bloch-type equations describing the entire system of the qubit, the environment and the detector are derived. Using these equations we evaluate the detector current and its noise spectrum in terms of the decoherence and relaxation rates of the qubit. Simple expressions are obtained that show how these quantities can be accurately measured. We demonstrate that due to interaction with the environment, the measurement can never localize a qubit even for infinite decoherence rate.Comment: some clarifications added, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Resonant scattering on impurities in the Quantum Hall Effect

We develop a new approach to carrier transport between the edge states via resonant scattering on impurities, which is applicable both for short and long range impurities. A detailed analysis of resonant scattering on a single impurity is performed. The results are used for study of the inter-edge transport by multiple resonant hopping via different impurities' sites. It is shown that the total conductance can be found from an effective Schroedinger equation with constant diagonal matrix elements in the Hamiltonian, where the complex non-diagonal matrix elements are the amplitudes of a carrier hopping between different impurities. It is explicitly demonstrated how the complex phase leads to Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the total conductance. Neglecting the contribution of self-crossing resonant-percolation trajectories, one finds that the inter-edge carrier transport is similar to propagation in one-dimensional system with off-diagonal disorder. We demonstrated that each Landau band has an extended state $\bar E_N$, while all other states are localized. The localization length behaves as $L_N^{-1}(E)\sim (E-\bar E_N)^2$.Comment: RevTex 41 pages; 3 Postscript figure on request; Final version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B. A new section added contained a comparison with other method

Effect of the measurement on the decay rate of a quantum system

We investigated the electron tunneling out of a quantum dot in the presence of a continuous monitoring by a detector. It is shown that the Schr\"odinger equation for the whole system can be reduced to new Bloch-type rate equations describing the time-development of the detector and the measured system at once. Using these equations we find that the continuous measurement of the unstable system does not affect its exponential decay, $\exp (-\Gamma t)$, contrary to expectations based on the Quantum Zeno effect . However, the width of the energy distribution of the tunneling electron is no more $\Gamma$, but increases due to the decoherence, generated by the detector.Comment: Additional explanations are added. Accepted for publications in Phys. Rev. Let

Quantum master equation approach to quantum transport through mesoscopic systems

For quantum transport through mesoscopic system, a quantum master equation approach is developed in terms of compact expressions for the transport current and the reduced density matrix of the system. The present work is an extension of Gurvitz's approach for quantum transport and quantum measurement, namely, to finite temperature and arbitrary bias voltage. Our derivation starts from a second-order cummulant expansion of the tunneling Hamiltonian, then follows conditional average over the electrode reservoir states. As a consequence, in the usual weak tunneling regime, the established formalism is applicable for a wide range of transport problems. The validity of the formalism and its convenience in application are well illustrated by a number of examples.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; with considerable extension of the previous version submitted in September 2004; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Relativistic approaches to structure functions of nuclei

We employ a propagator technique to derive a new relativistic 1/\qq expansion of the structure function of a nucleus, composed of point-nucleons. We exploit non-relativistic features of low-momentum nucleons in the target and only treat relativistically the nucleon after absorption of a high-momentum virtual photon. The new series permits a 3-dimensional reduction of each term and a formal summation of all Final State Interaction terms. We then show that a relativistic structure function can be obtained from its non-relativistic analog by a mere change of a scaling variable and an addition of an energy shift. We compare the obtained result with an ad hoc generalized Gersch-Rodriguez-Smith theory, previously used in computations of nuclear structure functions.Comment: Comparison with data is included, to be published in PRC, Feb. 200

Influence of measurement on the life-time and the line-width of unstable systems

We investigate the quantum Zeno effect in the case of electron tunneling out of a quantum dot in the presence of continuous monitoring by a detector. It is shown that the Schr\"odinger equation for the whole system can be reduced to Bloch-type rate equations describing the combined time-development of the detector and the measured system. Using these equations we find that continuous measurement of the unstable system does not affect its exponential decay to a reservoir with a constant density of states. The width of the energy distribution of the tunneling electron, however, is not equal to the inverse life-time -- it increases due to the decoherence generated by the detector. We extend the analysis to the case of a reservoir described by an energy dependent density of states, and we show that continuous measurement of such quantum systems affects both the exponential decay rate and the energy distribution. The decay does not always slow down, but might be accelerated. The energy distribution of the tunneling electron may reveal the lines invisible before the measurement.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, comments and references added; to appear in Phys. Rev.