Waiting time distribution of quantum electronic transport in the transient regime

Abstract

Waiting time is an important transport quantity that is complementary to average current and its fluctuation. So far all the studies of waiting time distribution (WTD) are limited to steady state transport (either dc or ac). In this work, we present a theory to calculate WTD for coherent electronic systems in transient regime. We express the generating function of full counting statistics using Keldysh non-equilibrium Green's functions formalism. Our analysis goes beyond the wideband approximation and is suitable for first principles calculation on realistic systems. Analytic solution has been obtained for short and long time behaviors of waiting times. At short times, the WTD shows a linear dependence on the waiting time while in the long time limit, WTD follows Poisson distribution. We have applied this theory to a quantum dot connected by two leads and calculated cumulants of transferred charge as well as WTD in the transient regime. We have demonstrated how to relate WTD to experimental measured data.