Auto- versus cross-correlation noise

Abstract

Expressing currents and their fluctuations at the terminals of a multi-probe conductor in terms of the wave functions of carriers injected into the Fermi sea provides new insight into the physics of electric currents. This approach helps us to identify two physically different contributions to shot noise. In the quantum coherent regime, when current is carried by non-overlapping wave-packets, the product of current fluctuations in different leads, the cross-correlation noise, is determined solely by the duration of the wave packet. In contrast, the square of the current fluctuations in one lead, the auto-correlation noise, is additionally determined by the coherence of the wave-packet, which is associated with the spread of the wave packet in energy. The two contributions can be addressed separately in the weak back-scattering regime, when the auto-correlation noise depends only on the coherence. Analysis of shot noise in terms of these contributions allows us, in particular, to predict that no individual travelling particles with a real wave function, such as Majorana fermions, can be created in the Fermi sea in a clean manner, that is, without accompanying electron-hole pairs.