Effect of the measurement on the decay rate of a quantum system

Abstract

We investigated the electron tunneling out of a quantum dot in the presence of a continuous monitoring by a detector. It is shown that the Schrödinger equation for the whole system can be reduced to new Bloch-type rate equations describing the time-development of the detector and the measured system at once. Using these equations we find that the continuous measurement of the unstable system does not affect its exponential decay, $\exp (-\Gamma t)$, contrary to expectations based on the Quantum Zeno effect . However, the width of the energy distribution of the tunneling electron is no more $\Gamma$, but increases due to the decoherence, generated by the detector.

Comments: Additional explanations are added. Accepted for publications in Phys. Rev. Lett