No Arabic abstract
We develop a general stochastic thermodynamics of RLC electrical networks built on top of a graph-theoretical representation of the dynamics commonly used by engineers. The network is: open, as it contains resistors and current and voltage sources, nonisothermal as resistors may be at different temperatures, and driven, as circuit elements may be subjected to external parametric driving. The proper description of the heat dissipated in each resistor requires care within the white noise idealization as it depends on the network topology. Our theory provides the basis to design circuits-based thermal machines, as we illustrate by designing a refrigerator using a simple driven circuit. We also derive exact results for the low temperature regime in which the quantum nature of the electrical noise must be taken into account. We do so using a semiclassical approach which can be shown to coincide with a fully quantum treatment of linear circuits for which canonical quantization is possible. We use it to generalize the Landauer-Buttiker formula for energy currents to arbitrary time-dependent driving protocols.
We analyze the role of indirect quantum measurements in work extraction from quantum systems in nonequilibrium states. In particular, we focus on the work that can be obtained by exploiting the correlations shared between the system of interest and an additional ancilla, where measurement backaction introduces a nontrivial thermodynamic tradeoff. We present optimal state-dependent protocols for extracting work from both classical and quantum correlations, the latter being measured by discord. We show that, while the work content of classical correlations can be fully extracted by performing local operations on the system of interest, the amount of work related to quantum discord requires a specific driving protocol that includes interaction between system and ancilla.
Quantum thermodynamics is a research field that aims at fleshing out the ultimate limits of thermodynamic processes in the deep quantum regime. A complete picture of quantum thermodynamics allows for catalysts, i.e., systems facilitating state transformations while remaining essentially intact in their state, very much reminding of catalysts in chemical reactions. In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis of the power and limitation of such thermal catalysis. Specifically, we provide a family of optimal catalysts that can be returned with minimal trace distance error after facilitating a state transformation process. To incorporate the genuine physical role of a catalyst, we identify very significant restrictions on arbitrary state transformations under dimension or mean energy bounds, using methods of convex relaxations. We discuss the implication of these findings on possible thermodynamic state transformations in the quantum regime.
The entropy produced when a system undergoes an infinitesimal quench is directly linked to the work parameter susceptibility, making it sensitive to the existence of a quantum critical point. Its singular behavior at $T=0$, however, disappears as the temperature is raised, hindering its use as a tool for spotting quantum phase transitions. Notwithstanding the entropy production can be split into classical and quantum components, related with changes in populations and coherences. In this paper we show that these individual contributions continue to exhibit signatures of the quantum phase transition, even at arbitrarily high temperatures. This is a consequence of their intrinsic connection to the derivatives of the energy eigenvalues and eigenbasis. We illustrate our results in two prototypical quantum critical systems, the Landau-Zener and $XY$ models.
The thermodynamics of a quantum system interacting with an environment that can be assimilated to a harmonic oscillator bath has been extensively investigated theoretically. In recent experiments, the system under study however does not interact directly with the bath, but though a cavity or a transmission line. The influence on the system from the bath is therefore seen through an intermediate system, which modifies the characteristics of this influence. Here we first show that this problem is elegantly solved by a transform, which we call the Vernon transform, mapping influence action kernels on influence action kernels. We also show that the Vernon transform takes a particularly simple form in the Fourier domain, though it then must be interpreted with some care. Second, leveraging results in quantum thermodynamics we show how the Vernon transform can also be used to compute the generating function of energy changes in the environment. We work out the example of a system interacting with two baths of the Caldeira-Leggett type, each of them seen through a cavity.
The study of open quantum systems often relies on approximate master equations derived under the assumptions of weak coupling to the environment. However when the system is made of several interacting subsystems such a derivation is in many cases very hard. An alternative method, employed especially in the modelling of transport in mesoscopic systems, consists in using {it local} master equations containing Lindblad operators acting locally only on the corresponding subsystem. It has been shown that this approach however generates inconsistencies with the laws of thermodynamics. In this paper we demonstrate that using a microscopic model of local master equations based on repeated collisions all thermodynamic inconsistencies can be resolved by correctly taking into account the breaking of global detailed balance related to the work cost of maintaining the collisions. We provide examples based on a chain of quantum harmonic oscillators whose ends are connected to thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. We prove that this system behaves precisely as a quantum heat engine or refrigerator, with properties that are fully consistent with basic thermodynamics.