Dephasing in a quantum pump

Abstract

We study how dephasing affects the distribution of the dc current pumped through a chaotic quantum dot. We introduce dephasing by the addition of a voltage probe to the quantum dot, treating both the case of controlled dephasing (when the voltage probe is coupled to the dot via a ballistic point contact with a conductance that is increased stepwise) and intrinsic dephasing (for which the voltage probe serves as a phenomelogical model). While dephasing eventually suppresses the dc current through the dot, we also find that, for a quantum dot with single-mode point contacts, a small amount of dephasing actually decreases the likelihood of a zero pumped current.