How to detect the fourth order cumulant of electrical noise

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to measure the fourth order cumulant of electrical noise in mesoscopic conductors using macroscopic quantum tunneling in a Josephson junction, providing a theoretical framework and explicit results.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup and theoretical analysis for extracting the fourth order cumulant of noise from MQT data in a Josephson junction.

Findings

Explicit formulas for noise cumulant extraction

Demonstration with oxide layer tunnel junction

Feasibility for realistic experimental parameters

Abstract

It is proposed to measure the current noise generated in a mesoscopic conductor by macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) in a current biased Josephson junction placed in parallel to the conductor. The theoretical description of this set-up takes into account the complete dynamics of detector and noise source. Explicit results are given for the specific case of current fluctuations in an oxide layer tunnel junction, and it is shown how the device allows to extract the fourth order cumulant of the noise from the MQT data for realistic experimental parameters.