Motivated by a recent experiment by Buks et al. [Nature 391, 871 (1998)] we consider electron transport through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with a quantum dot in one of its arms. The quantum dot is coupled to a quantum system with a finite number of states acting as a which-path detector. The Aharonov-Bohm interference is calculated using a two-particle scattering approach for the joint transitions in detector and quantum dot. Tracing over the detector yields dephasing and a reduction of the interference amplitude. We show that the interference can be restored by a suitable measurement on the detector and propose a mesoscopic quantum eraser based on this principle.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9811180,
title = {A Mesoscopic Quantum Eraser},
author = {G. Hackenbroich and B. Rosenow and H. A. Weidenmueller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9811180},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Europhys. Lett., uses EuroPhys.sty and EuroMacro.tex (included)