Dephasing by a Zero-Temperature Detector and the Friedel Sum Rule

Abstract

Detecting the passage of an interfering particle through one of the interferometer's arms, known as "which path" measurement, gives rise to interference visibility degradation (dephasing). Here, we consider a detector at equilibrium. At finite temperature, dephasing is caused by thermal fluctuations of the detector. More interestingly, in the zero-temperature limit, equilibrium quantum fluctuations of the detector give rise to dephasing of the out-of-equilibrium interferometer. This dephasing is a manifestation of an orthogonality catastrophe, which differs qualitatively from Anderson's. Its magnitude is directly related to the Friedel sum rule.