Heat transport through a two-level system under continuous quantum measurement

TL;DR

This paper investigates how continuous quantum measurements influence heat transport in a two-level system, revealing backaction effects as dephasing and analyzing measurement outcomes' correlation with heat current, with potential experimental verification in superconducting circuits.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic master equation approach to quantify backaction effects on heat transport under continuous measurement in a two-level system.

Findings

Backaction manifests as dephasing in the two-level system.

Cross-correlation reveals information about measurement backaction.

Potential for experimental verification in superconducting circuits.

Abstract

We study the backaction of quantum measurements on heat transport through a two-level system by considering the continuous quantum measurement onto an eigenstate of the two-level system. For the nonselective measurement, the backaction appears as a dephasing effect on the two-level system. We formulate the heat current under the selective measurement with a stochastic master equation and show that the cross-correlation between the measurement outcomes and the heat current contains information on the backaction. We expect that our findings can be verified by using a platform of superconducting circuits.