Mesoscopic cavity quantum electrodynamics with quantum dots

We describe an electrodynamic mechanism for coherent, quantum-mechanical coupling between spatially separated quantum dots on a microchip. The technique is based on capacitive interactions between the electron charge and a superconducting transmission line resonator, and is closely related to atomic cavity quantum electrodynamics. We investigate several potential applications of this technique which have varying degrees of complexity. In particular, we demonstrate that this mechanism allows design and investigation of an on-chip double-dot microscopic maser. Moreover, the interaction may be extended to couple spatially separated electron-spin states while only virtually populating fast-decaying superpositions of charge states. This represents an effective, controllable long-range interaction, which may facilitate implementation of quantum information processing with electron-spin qubits and potentially allow coupling to other quantum systems such as atomic or superconducting qubits.