Full Counting Statistics in Quantum Contacts

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Green's function approach to full counting statistics in quantum transport, illustrating its application to two-terminal and multi-terminal contacts, revealing transport features and correlations.

Contribution

It presents a novel Green's function formalism for full counting statistics in quantum contacts, unifying analysis of normal and superconducting systems.

Findings

Counting statistics clarifies transport features in normal and superconducting contacts.

The formalism naturally incorporates correlations in multi-terminal structures.

Examples demonstrate the method's effectiveness in various quantum contact configurations.

Abstract

Full counting statistics is a fundamentally new concept in quantum transport. After a review of basic statistics theory, we introduce the powerful Green's function approach to full counting statistics. To illustrate the concept we consider a number of examples. For generic two-terminal contacts we show how counting statistics elucidates the common (and different) features of transport between normal and superconducting contacts. Finally, we demonstrate how correlations in multi-terminal structures are naturally included in the formalism.