Integer and fractional charge Lorentzian voltage pulses analyzed in the framework of photon-assisted shot noise

Abstract

We study the injection $n$ of electrons in a quantum conductor using voltage pulses applied on a contact. We particularly consider the case of Lorentzian voltage pulses. When carrying integer charge, they are known to provide electronic states with a minimal number of excitations, while any other type of pulses are accompanied with a neutral cloud of electron and hole excitations. We focus on the low-frequency shot noise arising when the excitations are partitioned by a single scatterer. Using periodic pulses, the physics can be discussed in the framework of the photon-assisted shot noise. Pulses of arbitrary shape and arbitrary charge are shown to give a marked minimum in the noise when the charge is an integer. The energy-domain characterization of the charge pulse excitations is also given using the shot-noise spectroscopy which reveals the asymmetrical energy spectrum of Lorentzian pulses. Finally, time-domain information is obtained from Hong-Ou-Mandel--type noise correlations when two trains of pulses generated on opposite contacts collide on the scatterer. For integer Lorentzian, the noise versus the time delay between pulse trains is shown to give a measure of the electron wave-packet autocorrelation function. In order to make contact with recent experiments, all the calculations are made at zero and finite temperatures.