Multi-Particle Interference in an Electronic Mach-Zehnder Interferometer.

The development of dynamic single-electron sources has made it possible to observe and manipulate the quantum properties of individual charge carriers in mesoscopic circuits. Here, we investigate multi-particle effects in an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer driven by a series of voltage pulses. To this end, we employ a Floquet scattering formalism to evaluate the interference current and the visibility in the outputs of the interferometer. An injected multi-particle state can be described by its first-order correlation function, which we decompose into a sum of elementary correlation functions that each represent a single particle. Each particle in the pulse contributes independently to the interference current, while the visibility (given by the maximal interference current) exhibits a Fraunhofer-like diffraction pattern caused by the multi-particle interference between different particles in the pulse. For a sequence of multi-particle pulses, the visibility resembles the diffraction pattern from a grid, with the role of the grid and the spacing between the slits being played by the pulses and the time delay between them. Our findings may be observed in future experiments by injecting multi-particle pulses into a Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

Auto- versus Cross-Correlation Noise in Periodically Driven Quantum Coherent Conductors.

Expressing currents and their fluctuations at the terminals of a multi-probe conductor in terms of the wave functions of carriers injected into the Fermi sea provides new insight into the physics of electric currents. This approach helps us to identify two physically different contributions to shot noise. In the quantum coherent regime, when current is carried by non-overlapping wave packets, the product of current fluctuations in different leads, the cross-correlation noise, is determined solely by the duration of the wave packet. In contrast, the square of the current fluctuations in one lead, the autocorrelation noise, is additionally determined by the coherence of the wave packet, which is associated with the spread of the wave packet in energy. The two contributions can be addressed separately in the weak back-scattering regime, when the autocorrelation noise depends only on the coherence. Analysis of shot noise in terms of these contributions allows us, in particular, to predict that no individual traveling particles with a real wave function, such as Majorana fermions, can be created in the Fermi sea in a clean manner, that is, without accompanying electron-hole pairs.

Quantum Transport in Mesoscopic Systems.

Mesoscopic physics has become a mature field [...].

Fractionally Charged Zero-Energy Single-Particle Excitations in a Driven Fermi Sea.

A voltage pulse of a Lorentzian shape carrying half of the flux quantum excites out of a zero-temperature Fermi sea an electron in a mixed state, which looks like a quasiparticle with an effectively fractional charge e/2. A prominent feature of such an excitation is a narrow peak in the energy distribution function lying exactly at the Fermi energy µ. Another spectacular feature is that the distribution function has symmetric tails around µ, which results in a zero-energy excitation. This sounds improbable since at zero temperature all available states below µ are fully occupied. The resolution lies in the fact that such a voltage pulse also excites electron-hole pairs, which free some space below µ and thus allow a zero-energy quasiparticle to exist. I discuss also how to address separately electron-hole pairs and a fractionally charged zero-energy excitation in an experiment.

Two-particle nonlocal Aharonov-Bohm effect from two single-particle emitters.

We propose a mesoscopic circuit in the quantum Hall effect regime comprising two uncorrelated single-particle sources and two distant Mach-Zehnder interferometers with magnetic fluxes, which allows us in a controllable way to produce orbitally entangled electrons. Two-particle correlations appear as a consequence of erasing of which-path information due to collisions taking place at distant interferometers and in general at different times. The two-particle correlations manifest themselves as an Aharonov-Bohm effect in noise, while the current is insensitive to magnetic fluxes. In an appropriate time interval the concurrence reaches a maximum and a Bell inequality is violated.