Stochastic trajectories and excursions in a double quantum dot system

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stochastic excursion framework to analyze trajectory-level dynamics in a double quantum dot system, revealing detailed correlations and thermodynamic constraints.

Contribution

It extends full counting statistics with a new formalism for filtering complex trajectories, providing novel insights into nonequilibrium fluctuations and thermodynamics.

Findings

Computed averages and noise for charge current, activity, and entropy production.

Analyzed outcome distributions and correlations between dot populations.

Discussed thermodynamic uncertainty relations constraining current precision.

Abstract

We investigate the trajectory-level dynamics of a double quantum dot system using the newly developed formalism of stochastic excursions. This approach extends full counting statistics by enabling a filtering of complex trajectories into sub-trajectories, which provide access to the intricate correlations between thermodynamic currents and excursion times. Counting observables are the main object of study in the stochastic excursion framework. Those are defined as a linear combination of transition counts multiplied by their assigned weights within one excursion. For three main counting observables -- charge current, dynamical activity, and entropy production -- we compute averages and noise contributions and show how they provide insights into the operation of the double quantum dot system. At the trajectory level, we analyze outcome distributions for transport and connect the results with trade-offs between successful and unsuccessful events that shape overall performance. We further introduce state observables, which depend on the state visited rather than the transition itself, and discuss the population of the two dots, as well as their correlations. Finally, we discuss thermodynamics of precision through thermo-kinetic uncertainty relations, showing how current precision in different regimes is fundamentally constrained either by entropy production or by dynamical activity. Altogether, our work is a case study that highlights the utility of the excursion framework as a toolkit to analyze many quantities of interest and to uncover the structure of nonequilibrium fluctuations. Moreover, it also suggests new avenues for refining uncertainty relations and understanding transport in mesoscopic systems.