Characterizing and mitigating timing-noise- induced decoherence in single-electron sources

Abstract

[eng] Identifying and controlling decoherence in single-electron sources (SESs) is important for their applications in quantum information processing. The recent experiments with ultrashort electron pulses [J. D. Fletcher et al., Nat. Commun. 10, 5298 (2019)] demonstrate strong decoherence that cannot be caused by traditional mechanisms such as electron-electron or electron-phonon interactions. Here we propose timing noise as a universal model, consistent with existing experimental data, to explain strong decoherence of ultrafast SES pulses, without resorting to any specific microscopic mechanism for such decoherence. We also propose a protocol to filter out timing noise which works even in the presence of other decoherence effects, such as those present in, e.g., low-energy SESs.