Decoherence enhanced quantum measurement of a quantum dot spin qubit

We study the effect of phonons on a proposed scheme for the direct measurement of two-electron spin states in a double quantum dot by monitoring the the noise of the current flowing through a quantum point contact coupled to one of the dots. We show that although the effect of phonons is damaging to the procedure at extremely low temperatures characteristic of spin-in-quantum-dots experiments, and may even be fatal, increasing the temperature leads to a revival of the schemes usefulness. Furthermore, at higher, but still reasonably low temperatures phonon effects become advantageous to the measurement scheme, and lead to the enhancement of the spin-singlet noise without disturbing the low spin-triplet noise. Hence, the uncontrollable interaction of the measured system with the open bosonic environment, can be harnessed to increase the distinguishability between the measured states.