Real-time simulation of finite-frequency noise from a single-electron emitter

Abstract

We study the real-time emission of single electrons from a quantum dot coupled to a one dimensional conductor, using exact diagonalization on a discrete tight-binding chain. We show that, from the calculation of the time evolution of the one-electron states, we have simple access to all the relevant physical quantities in the system. In particular, we are able to compute accurately the finite-frequency current autocorrelation noise. The method that we use is general and versatile, allowing us to study the impact of many different parameters, such as the dot transparency or level position. Our results can be directly compared with existing experiments, and can also serve as a basis for future calculations including electronic interactions using the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group and other techniques based on tight-binding models.