Indistinguishability of quantum states and rotation counting

We propose a quantum system in which the winding number of rotations of a particle around a ring can be monitored and emerges as a physical observable. We explicitly analyze the situation when, as a result of the monitoring of the winding number, the period of the orbital motion of the particle is extended to $n>1$ full rotations, which leads to changes in the energy spectrum and in all observable properties. In particular, we show that in this case, the usual magnetic flux period $\Phi_0=h/q$ of the Aharonov-Bohm effect is reduced to $\Phi_0/n$.Comment: 5 pages, 3 embedded figure

Mach-Zehnder interferometer in the Fractional Quantum Hall regime

We consider tunneling between two edges of Quantum Hall liquids (QHL) of filling factors $\nu_{0,1}=1/(2 m_{0,1}+1)$, with $m_0 \geq m_1\geq 0$, through two point contacts forming Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Quasi-particle description of the interferometer is derived explicitly through the instanton duality transformation of the initial electron model. For $m_{0}+m_{1}+1\equiv m>1$, tunneling of quasiparticles of charge $e/m$ leads to non-trivial $m$-state dynamics of effective flux through the interferometer, which restores the regular ``electron'' periodicity of the current in flux. The exact solution available for equal propagation times between the contacts along the two edges demonstrates that the interference pattern in the tunneling current depends on voltage and temperature only through a common amplitude.Comment: five two-column pages in RevTex4, 1 eps figur

Violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem in time-dependent mesoscopic heat transport

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.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Counting statistics and detector properties of quantum point contacts

Quantum detector properties of the quantum point contact (QPC) are analyzed for arbitrary electron transparency and coupling strength to the measured system and are shown to be determined by the electron counting statistics. Conditions of the quantum-limited operation of the QPC detector which prevent information loss through the scattering time and scattering phases are found for arbitrary coupling. We show that the phase information can be restored and used for the quantum-limited detection by inclusion of the QPC detector in the electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, published versio

Quadratic Quantum Measurements

We develop a theory of quadratic quantum measurements by a mesoscopic detector. It is shown that quadratic measurements should have non-trivial quantum information properties, providing, for instance, a simple way of entangling two non-interacting qubits. We also calculate output spectrum of a quantum detector with both linear and quadratic response continuously monitoring coherent oscillations in two qubits.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

FQHE interferometers in strong tunneling regime. The role of compactness of edge fields

We consider multiple-point tunneling in the interferometers formed between edges of electron liquids with in general different filling factors in the regime of the Fractional Quantum Hall effect (FQHE). We derive an effective matrix Caldeira-Leggett models for the multiple tunneling contacts connected by the chiral single-mode FQHE edges. It is shown that the compactness of the Wen- Fr\"ohlich chiral boson fields describing the FQHE edge modes plays a crucial role in eliminating the spurious non-locality of the electron transport properties of the FQHE interferometers arising in the regime of strong tunneling.Comment: 5 page