Quantum Kinetic Uncertainty Relations in Mesoscopic Conductors at Strong Coupling.

Authors

Gianmichele Blasi, Ricard Ravell Rodríguez, Mykhailo Moskalets, Rosa López, Géraldine Haack

Published in

Physical review letters. Volume 137. Issue 5. Pages 056302. Jul 31, 2026.

Abstract

Kinetic uncertainty relations (KURs) set fundamental limits on the precision of nonequilibrium transport by bounding the signal-to-noise ratio of currents in terms of the dynamical activity, a quantity that counts exchange events between a system and its reservoirs. This framework is well established in the weak-coupling regime, where transport occurs via well-defined, particlelike tunneling processes. At strong coupling, however, quantum coherence challenges both the validity of standard KURs and the notion of activity itself. In this Letter, we introduce a generalized definition of dynamical activity valid at arbitrary system-reservoir coupling, and show that it leads to a breakdown of standard KURs at strong coupling. Building on this result, we derive and prove a novel uncertainty relation, denoted quantum KUR (QKUR), which provides a genuine quantum extension of KUR, accounting for intrinsic quantum coherent contributions of the generalized activity. We demonstrate that the generalized activity reduces to the standard master-equation definition in the weak-coupling regime for generic systems of N coupled quantum dots described by a quadratic Hamiltonian, and analyze the resulting QKUR bound in paradigmatic quantum-coherent mesoscopic devices, including single- and double-quantum dot systems and a quantum point contact.

PMID:
42606479
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Aug 2026.

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