Full counting statistics of stationary particle beams

Abstract

We present a general theoretical framework for treating particle beams as time-stationary limits of many particle systems. Due to stationarity, the total particle number diverges, and a description in Fock space is no longer possible. Nevertheless, we show that when describing the particle detection via second quantized arrival time observables, such beams exhibit a well-defined “local” counting statistics, that is, full counting statistics of all clicks falling into any given finite time interval. We also treat in detail a realization of such a beam via the long time limit of a source creating particles in a fixed initial state from which they then evolve freely. From the mathematical point of view, the beam is described by a quasi-free state which, in the one-particle level, is locally trace class with respect to the operator valued measure describing the time observable; this ensures the existence of a Fredholm determinant defining the characteristic function of the counting statistics