No Arabic abstract
We examine a quantum Otto engine with a harmonic working medium consisting of two particles to explore the use of wave function symmetry as an accessible resource. It is shown that the bosonic system displays enhanced performance when compared to two independent single particle engines, while the fermionic system displays reduced performance. To this end, we explore the trade-off between efficiency and power output and the parameter regimes under which the system functions as engine, refrigerator, or heater. Remarkably, the bosonic system operates under a wider parameter space both when operating as an engine and as a refrigerator.
The time evolution of an extended quantum system can be theoretically described in terms of the Schwinger-Keldysh functional integral formalism, whose action conveniently encodes the information about the dynamics. We show here that the action of quantum systems evolving in thermal equilibrium is invariant under a symmetry transformation which distinguishes them from generic open systems. A unitary or dissipative dynamics having this symmetry naturally leads to the emergence of a Gibbs thermal stationary state. Moreover, the fluctuation-dissipation relations characterizing the linear response of an equilibrium system to external perturbations can be derived as the Ward-Takahashi identities associated with this symmetry. Accordingly, the latter provides an efficient check for the onset of thermodynamic equilibrium and it makes testing the validity of fluctuation-dissipation relations unnecessary. In the classical limit, this symmetry renders the one which is known to characterize equilibrium in the stochastic dynamics of classical systems coupled to thermal baths, described by Langevin equations.
Partial Quantum Nearest Neighbor Probability Density Functions (PQNNPDFs) are formulated for the purpose of determining the behavior of quantum mixed systems in equilibrium in a manner analogous to that provided for classical multi-component systems. Developments in partial quantum m-tuplet distribution functions, a generalization of the partial quantum radial distribution function, along with their relationship to PQNNPDFs, are briefly elucidated. The calculation of statistical thermodynamic properties of quantum mixtures is presented for arbitrary material systems. Application to the limiting case of dilute, weakly correlated quantum gas mixtures has been outlined and the second virial coefficient is derived. The case of dilute strongly degenerate mixtures is also addressed, providing an expression for the PQNNPDF applicable in this thermodynamic regime.
The excess work performed in a heat-engine process with given finite operation time tau is bounded by the thermodynamic length, which measures the distance during the relaxation along a path in the space of the thermodynamic state. Unfortunately, the thermodynamic length, as a guidance for the heat engine optimization, is beyond the experimental measurement. We propose to measure the thermodynamic length mathcal{L} through the extrapolation of finite-time measurements mathcal{L}(tau)=int_{0}^{tau}[P_{mathrm{ex}}(t)]^{1/2}dt via the excess power P_{mathrm{ex}}(t). The current proposal allows to measure the thermodynamic length for a single control parameter without requiring extra effort to find the optimal control scheme. We illustrate the measurement strategy via examples of the quantum harmonic oscillator with tuning frequency and the classical ideal gas with changing volume.
We present a self-contained theory for the exact calculation of particle number counting statistics of non-interacting indistinguishable particles in the canonical ensemble. This general framework introduces the concept of auxiliary partition functions, and represents a unification of previous distinct approaches with many known results appearing as direct consequences of the developed mathematical structure. In addition, we introduce a general decomposition of the correlations between occupation numbers in terms of the occupation numbers of individual energy levels, that is valid for both non-degenerate and degenerate spectra. To demonstrate the applicability of the theory in the presence of degeneracy, we compute energy level correlations up to fourth order in a bosonic ring in the presence of a magnetic field.
We generalize techniques previously used to compute ground-state properties of one-dimensional noninteracting quantum gases to obtain exact results at finite temperature. We compute the order-n Renyi entanglement entropy to all orders in the fugacity in one, two, and three spatial dimensions. In all spatial dimensions, we provide closed-form expressions for its virial expansion up to next-to-leading order. In all of our results, we find explicit volume scaling in the high-temperature limit.