Waiting times and noise in single particle transport

The waiting time distribution w(T), i.e. the probability for a delay T between two subsequent transition ('jumps') of particles, is a statistical tool in (quantum) transport. Using generalized Master equations for systems coupled to external particle reservoirs, one can establish relations between w(T) and other statistical transport quantities such as the noise spectrum and the Full Counting Statistics. It turns out that w(T) usually contains additional information on system parameters and properties such as quantum coherence, the number of internal states, or the entropy of the current channels that participate in transport. (C) 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.