CHARGE-DISTRIBUTION IN QUANTUM SHOT-NOISE

The charge which passes through a low-temperature quantum conductor over a fixed time has a binomial distribution. Fluctuations in the electron flux from the source and fluctuations due to scattering of electrons in the conductor are taken into account separately in the derivation. A generalization is made to the case of an arbitrary number of conduction channels and an arbitrary temperature. A generalized binomial (Bernoulli) distribution arises for the multichannel situation at absolute zero. In this distribution, the probabilities of the various outcomes are expressed in terms of multiparticle scattering probabilities.