Thermodynamic length for far from equilibrium quantum systems
Quantum Physics
2013-03-04 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We consider a closed quantum system, initially at thermal equilibrium, driven by arbitrary external parameters. We derive a lower bound on the entropy production which we express in terms of the Bures angle between the nonequilibrium and the corresponding equilibrium state of the system. The Bures angle is an angle between mixed quantum states and defines a thermodynamic length valid arbitrarily far from equilibrium. As an illustration, we treat the case of a time-dependent harmonic oscillator for which we obtain analytic expressions for generic driving protocols.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1212.2055,
title = {Thermodynamic length for far from equilibrium quantum systems},
author = {Sebastian Deffner and Eric Lutz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.2055},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
8 pages, 3 figures