Characterizing and Mitigating Timing Noise-Induced Decoherence in Single Electron Sources

Identifying and controlling decoherence in single electron sources (SES) is important for their applications in quantum information processing. The recent experiments with ultrashort electron pulses [J. D. Fletcher et al., Nat. Commun. 10, 5298 (2019)] demonstrate strong decoherence that cannot be caused by traditional mechanisms such as electron-electron or electron-phonon interactions. Here we propose timing noise as a universal model, consistent with existing experimental data, to explain strong decoherence of ultrafast SES pulses, without resorting to any specific microscopic mechanism for such decoherence. We also propose a protocol to filter out timing noise which works even in the presence of other decoherence effects, such as those present in, e.g., low-energy SESs.