No Arabic abstract
Entropy is one of the most basic concepts in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The most widely used definition of statistical mechanical entropy for a quantum system is introduced by von Neumann. While in classical systems, the statistical mechanical entropy is defined by Gibbs. The relation between these two definitions of entropy is still not fully explored. In this work, we study this problem by employing the phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics. For those quantum states having well-defined classical counterparts, we study the quantum-classical correspondence and quantum corrections of the entropy. We expand the von Neumann entropy in powers of ${hbar}$ by using the phase-space formulation, and the zeroth order term reproduces the Gibbs entropy. We also obtain the explicit expression of the quantum corrections of the entropy. Moreover, we find that for the thermodynamic equilibrium state, all terms odd in ${hbar}$ are exactly zero. As an application, we derive quantum corrections for the net work extraction during a quantum Carnot cycle. Our results bring important insights to the understanding of quantum entropy and may have potential applications in the study of quantum heat engines.
Quantum Brownian motion model is a typical model in the study of nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics. Entropy is one of the most fundamental physical concepts in thermodynamics. In this work, by solving the quantum Langevin equation, we study the von Neumann entropy of a particle undergoing quantum Brownian motion. In both the strong and the weak coupling regimes, we obtain the analytical expression of the time evolution of the Wigner function in terms of the initial Wigner function. The result is applied to the thermodynamic equilibrium initial state, which reproduces its classical counterpart in the high-temperature limit. Based on these results, for those initial states having well-defined classical counterparts, we obtain the explicit expression of the quantum corrections to the entropy of the system. Moreover, under the Markovian approximation, we obtain the expression of the quantum corrections to the total entropy production rate ${e_{rm p}}$ and the heat dissipation rate ${h_{rm d}}$. Our results bring important insights to the understanding of entropy in open quantum systems.
We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduates thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students in these courses do not clearly articulate the connection between the Carnot cycle and the Second Law after lecture instruction. This result is consistent both within and across student populations. Observation data provide evidence for myriad difficulties related to entropy and heat engines, including students struggles in reasoning about situations that are physically impossible and failures to differentiate between differential and net changes of state properties of a system. Results herein may be seen as the application of previously documented difficulties in the context of heat engines, but others are novel and emphasize the subtle and complex nature of cyclic processes and heat engines, which are central to the teaching and learning of thermodynamics and its applications. Moreover, the sophistication of these difficulties is indicative of the more advanced thinking required of students at the upper division, whose developing knowledge and understanding give rise to questions and struggles that are inaccessible to novices.
The purpose of this paper is to present simple and general algebraic methods for describing series connections in quantum networks. These methods build on and generalize existing methods for series (or cascade) connections by allowing for more general interfaces, and by introducing an efficient algebraic tool, the series product. We also introduce another product, which we call the concatenation product, that is useful for assembling and representing systems without necessarily having connections. We show how the concatenation and series products can be used to describe feedforward and feedback networks. A selection of examples from the quantum control literature are analyzed to illustrate the utility of our network modeling methodology.
In spite of their simple description in terms of rotations or symplectic transformations in phase space, quadratic Hamiltonians such as those modeling the most common Gaussian operations on bosonic modes remain poorly understood in terms of entropy production. For instance, determining the von Neumann entropy produced by a Bogoliubov transformation is notably a hard problem, with generally no known analytical solution. Here, we overcome this difficulty by using the replica method, a tool borrowed from statistical physics and quantum field theory. We exhibit a first application of this method to the field of quantum optics, where it enables accessing entropies in a two-mode squeezer or optical parametric amplifier. As an illustration, we determine the entropy generated by amplifying a binary superposition of the vacuum and an arbitrary Fock state, which yields a surprisingly simple, yet unknown analytical expression.
Recently, there is a growing interest in study quantum mechanics from the information geometry perspective, where a quantum state is depicted with a point in the projective Hilbert space. By taking quantum Fisher information (QFI) as the metric of projective Hilbert spaces, estimating a small parameter shift is equivalent to distinguishing neighboring quantum states along a given curve. Henceforth, information geometry plays a significant role in the single parameter estimation. However, the absence of high dimensional measures limits its applications in studying the multi-parameter systems. In this paper, we will discuss the physical implications of the volume element of QFI. It measures the intrinsic density of quantum states (IDQS) in projective Hilbert spaces, which is, then, a measure to define the (over) completeness relation of a class of quantum states. As an application, IDQS can be used in quantum measurement and multi-parameter estimation. We find the density of distinguishable states (DDS) for a set of efficient estimators is measured by the invariant volume of the classical Fisher information, which is the classical counterpart of QFI and serves as the metric of statistical manifolds. Correspondingly, a determinant form of quantum Cram{e}r-Rao inequality is proposed to quantify the ability to infer the IDQS via quantum measurement. As a result, we find a gap between IDQS and maximal DDS over the measurements. The gap has tight connections with the uncertainty relationship. Exemplified with the three-level system with two parameters, we find the maximal DDS attained via the emph{vertex measurements} (MvDDS) equals the square root of the quantum geometric tensors determinant. It indicates the square gap between IDQS and MvDDS is proportional to the square of Berry curvature.