Heat distribution of a quantum harmonic oscillator
Quantum Physics
2018-11-14 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We consider a thermal quantum harmonic oscillator weakly coupled to a heat bath at a different temperature. We analytically study the quantum heat exchange statistics between the two systems using the quantum-optical master equation. We exactly compute the characteristic function of the heat distribution and show that it verifies the Jarzynski-W\'ojcik fluctuation theorem. We further evaluate the heat probability density in the limit of long thermalization times, both in the low and high temperature regimes, and investigate its time evolution by calculating its first two cumulants.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1807.03572,
title = {Heat distribution of a quantum harmonic oscillator},
author = {Tobias Denzler and Eric Lutz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.03572},
year = {2018}
}