Interference effects in the counting statistics of electron transfers through a double quantum dot

Sven Welack, Massimiliano Esposito, Upendra Harbola, Shaul Mukamel

Published 2007-09-21, updated 2008-04-09Version 2

We investigate the effect of quantum interferences and Coulomb interaction on the counting statistics of electrons crossing a double quantum dot in a parallel geometry using a generating function technique based on a quantum master equation approach. The skewness and the average residence time of electrons in the dots are shown to be the quantities most sensitive to interferences and Coulomb coupling. The joint probabilities of consecutive electron transfer processes show characteristic temporal oscillations due to interference. The steady-state fluctuation theorem which predicts a universal connection between the number of forward and backward transfer events is shown to hold even in the presence of Coulomb coupling and interference.