  We investigate electron charge decoherence in a laterally-coupled
single-electron semiconductor double quantum dot through electron-phonon
interaction. We analytically and numerically evaluate the relaxation and
dephasing rates due to electron coupling to both acoustic and optical phonons,
and explore the system parameter space in terms of interdot distance, strength
of single-dot confinement, and inter-dot coupling strength. Our numerical
results show that the electron scattering rates are strongly dependent on the
strength of the electron confinement and the size of the system. In addition,
although the most dominant factor that determines the charge decoherence rate
is the energy splitting between the charge qubit states, the details of the
double dot configuration is also very important.
