  Electron transport in mesoscopic contacts at low temperatures is accompanied
by logarithmically divergent equilibrium noise. We show that this equilibrium
noise can be dramatically suppressed in the case of a tunnel junction with
modulated (time-dependent) transparency, and identify the optimal protocol. We
show how such a contact could be used either as an optimal electron entangler
or as a single-electron source with suppressed equilibrium noise at low
temperatures.
