The Transient Counting Statistics of Autonomous Quantum Clocks
Abstract
At the heart of every atomic clock is a quantum coherent emitter, the laser, that could in principle be treated autonomously. While their frequency or phase stability is typically studied in the semiclassical regime of a large number of emitted quanta, recent works on autonomous quantum clocks suggest that the few-quanta regime can offer statistical information in the temporal domain. This provides complementary means to probe the fundamental limits to precise timekeeping in the quantum regime. Motivated by these works, we consider simple models for two- and three-level quantum emitters subject to an athermal fueling through dephasing, which generically results in coherences in the steady state. A large deviation principle with finite-time contributions is used to identify the transient counting statistics and their dependence on the initial conditions. We conclude by discussing the implications for precise timekeeping and quantum sensing using autonomous quantum emitters as clocks in their transient regime.
Related
- Nonequilibrium full counting statistics of multicomponent strongly-interacting quantum gases with defects
- QuantumFCS.jl: Efficient Full-Counting Statistics for Open Quantum Systems
- Quantum Dynamics of Full Counting Statistics in Fermionic Lattices with Localized Gain
- Observation of correlations beyond the single-particle picture in fermionic counting statistics
- Random field approximation and local counting statistics for the weakly interacting thermal Bose gas
BibTeX
@misc{arandes2026transient,
title = {{The Transient Counting Statistics of Autonomous Quantum Clocks}},
author = {Oscar Arandes and Sreenath K. Manikandan},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.16121},
eprint = {2609.16121},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16121},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Transient Counting Statistics of Autonomous Quantum Clocks
AU - Oscar Arandes
AU - Sreenath K. Manikandan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.16121
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16121
AB - At the heart of every atomic clock is a quantum coherent emitter, the laser, that could in principle be treated autonomously. While their frequency or phase stability is typically studied in the semiclassical regime of a large number of emitted quanta, recent works on autonomous quantum clocks suggest that the few-quanta regime can offer statistical information in the temporal domain. This provides complementary means to probe the fundamental limits to precise timekeeping in the quantum regime. Motivated by these works, we consider simple models for two- and three-level quantum emitters subject to an athermal fueling through dephasing, which generically results in coherences in the steady state. A large deviation principle with finite-time contributions is used to identify the transient counting statistics and their dependence on the initial conditions. We conclude by discussing the implications for precise timekeeping and quantum sensing using autonomous quantum emitters as clocks in their transient regime.
ER -