Combining kinetic and thermodynamic uncertainty relations in quantum transport

Abstract

We study the fluctuations of generic currents in multi-terminal, multi-channel quantum transport settings. In the quantum regime, these fluctuations and the resulting precision differ strongly depending on whether the device is of fermionic or bosonic nature. Using scattering theory, we show that the precision is bounded by constraints set by the entropy production and by the activity in the spirit of thermodynamic or kinetic uncertainty relations, valid for fermionic and bosonic quantum systems and even in the absence of time-reversal symmetry. Furthermore, we derive a combined thermodynamic kinetic uncertainty relation, which is tight over a wide range of parameters and can hence predict the reachable precision of a device. Since these constraints can be expressed in terms of observables accessible in transport measurements, such as currents and bandwidth, we foresee that the tight thermodynamic kinetic uncertainty-like bounds are also useful as an inference tool: they can be exploited to estimate entropy production from transport observables, such as the charge current and its noise, which are more easily accessible in experiment.