Related papers: Thermal Noise as a Window into the Quantum Vacuum:…
We show that it is possible to estimate the shape of an object by measuring only the fluctuations of a probing field, allowing us to expose the object to a minimal light intensity. This scheme, based on noise measurements through homodyne…
There is currently significant interest in operating devices in the quantum regime, where their behaviour cannot be explained through classical mechanics. Quantum states, including entangled states, are fragile and easily disturbed by…
The thermovoltage of a chaotic quantum dot is measured using a current heating technique. The fluctuations in the thermopower as a function of magnetic field and dot shape display a non-Gaussian distribution, in agreement with simulations…
We examine the noise-induced transition in a fluctuating bistable potential of a driven quantum system in thermal equilibrium. Making use of a Wigner canonical thermal distribution for description of the statistical properties of the…
We present theoretical results that demonstrate a new technique to be used to improve the sensitivity of thermal noise measurements: intra-cavity intensity stabilisation. It is demonstrated that electro-optic feedback can be used to reduce…
The microscopic processes underlying electro-optic sampling of quantum-vacuum fluctuations are discussed, leading to the interpretation of these experiments in terms of an exchange of virtual photons. With this in mind it is shown how one…
Quantum fluctuations of the vacuum are both a surprising and fundamental phenomenon of nature. Understood as virtual photons flitting in and out of existence, they still have a very real impact, \emph{e.g.}, in the Casimir effects and the…
The quantum ratchet current is studied in the parameter space of the dissipative kicked rotor model coupled to a zero temperature quantum environment. We show that vacuum fluctuations blur the generic isoperiodic stable structures found in…
We study the spectrum of gravitational waves produced by a first order phase transition in a hidden sector that is colder than the visible sector. In this scenario, bubbles of the hidden sector vacuum can be nucleated through either thermal…
We present a quantum network approach to the treatment of thermal and quantum fluctuations in measurement devices. The measurement is described as a scattering process of input fluctuations towards output ones. We present the results…
A particular form for the quantum indeterminacy of relative spacetime position of events is derived from the limits of measurement possible with Planck wavelength radiation. The indeterminacy predicts fluctuations from a classically defined…
The exploration of the rich dynamics of electrons is a frontier in fundamental nano-physics. The dynamical behavior of electrons is dominated by random and chaotic thermal motion with ultrafast ($\approx$ ps) and nanoscale scatterings. This…
We show that the zero-point fluctuations of the intrinsic electromagnetic environment limit the phase coherence time in all mesoscopic systems at low temperatures. We derive this quantum noise limited dephasing time and its temperature…
Shot noise encodes additional information not directly inferable from simple electronic transport measurements. Previous measurements in atomic-scale metal junctions at cryogenic temperatures have shown suppression of the shot noise at…
Space--time can be understood as some kind of space--time foam of fluctuating bubbles or loops which are expected to be an outcome of a theory of quantum gravity. One recently discussed model for this kind of space--time fluctuations is the…
When a coherent electromagnetic wave passes through a beam splitter (BS), it is divided equally into two parts. However, the quantum noise associated with the resulting coherent states, despite being reduced in amplitude by half, remains…
We measure the quantum fluctuations of a pumped nonlinear resonator, using a superconducting artificial atom as an in-situ probe. The qubit excitation spectrum gives access to the frequency and temperature of the intracavity field…
Efficiency of a Brownian particle moving along the axis of a three-dimensional asymmetric periodic channel is investigated in the presence of a symmetric unbiased force and a load. Reduction of the spatial dimensionality from two or three…
The quantum behaviour of the electromagnetic field in mesoscopic elements is intimately linked to the quantization of the charge. In order to probe nonclassical aspects of the field in those elements, it is essential that thermal noise be…
High-quality quantum oscillators are preferred for precision sensing of external physical parameter because if the noise level due to interactions with the environment is too high, metrological information can be lost due to quantum…