Dissipative dynamics of coupled quantum dots under quantum measurement

We have studied the dissipative dynamics of a solid-state qubit with an extra electron confined to either one of two coupled quantum dots. Previous theoretical work based on Bloch-type rate equations gave an unphysical uniform occupation probability of the electron in the quantum dots even for non-identical dots. We show that this is due to neglecting higher-order interactions in the analysis. By including higher-order terms, we obtain expected asymmetric occupation probabilities for non-identical dots. Our work demonstrates that the high-order interaction terms can lead to important qualitative impacts on the operation of the qubit.