Universal departure from Johnson-Nyquist relation caused by limited resolution

TL;DR

This paper introduces a quantum measurement scheme accounting for limited resolution, revealing a universal deviation from the Johnson-Nyquist relation due to excess noise, with implications for noise thermometry accuracy.

Contribution

The authors extend full counting statistics to include measurement resolution limits, demonstrating a universal scaling law for deviations from Johnson-Nyquist noise in quantum systems.

Findings

Limited resolution causes positive excess noise and deviation from Johnson-Nyquist relation.

Deviation exhibits universal single-parameter scaling with variable Q.

Deviation behavior characterized by exponential and square root dependence on Q.

Abstract

Exploiting the two-point measurement statistics, we propose a quantum measurement scheme of current with limited resolution of electron counting. Our scheme is equivalent to the full counting statistics in the long-time measurement with the ideal resolution, but is theoretically extended to take into account the resolution limit of actual measurement devices. Applying our scheme to a resonant level model, we show that the limited resolution of current measurement gives rise to a positive excess noise, which leads to a deviation from the Johnson-Nyquist relation. The deviation exhibits universal single-parameter scaling with the scaling variable $Q\equiv S_{\rm{}M}/S_0$, which represents the degree of the insufficiency of the resolution. Here, $S_0$ is the intrinsic noise, and $S_{\rm{}M}$ is the positive quantity that has the same dimension as $S_0$ and is defined solely by the measurement scheme. For the lack of the ideal resolution, the deviation emerges for $Q<1$ as $2\exp[-(2\pi)^2/Q]$ having an essential singularity at $Q=0$, which followed by the square root dependence $\sqrt{Q/4\pi}$ for $Q\gg1$. Our findings offer an explanation for the anomalous enhancement of noise temperature observed in Johnson noise thermometry.