Entanglement in mesoscopic structures: Role of projection

Abstract

We present a theoretical analysis of the appearance of entanglement in noninteracting mesoscopic structures. Our setup involves two oppositely polarized sources injecting electrons of opposite spin into the two incoming leads. The mixing of these polarized streams in an ideal four-channel beam splitter produces two outgoing streams with particular tunable correlations. A Bell inequality test involving cross-correlated spin currents in opposite leads signals the presence of spin entanglement between particles propagating in different leads. We identify the role of fermionic statistics and projective measurement in the generation of these spin-entangled electrons.