Related papers: Work as an external quantum observable and an oper…
A key concept in quantum thermodynamics is extractable work, which specifies the maximum amount of work that can be extracted from a quantum system. Different quantities are used to measure extractable work, the most prevalent of which are…
Energy extraction is a central task in thermodynamics. In quantum physics, ergotropy measures the amount of work extractable under cyclic Hamiltonian control. As its full extraction requires perfect knowledge of the initial state, however,…
We analyze work done on a quantum system driven by a control field. The average work depends on the whole dynamics of the system, and is obtained as the integral of the average power operator. As a specific example we focus on a…
We study how Thomson's formulation of the second law: no work is extracted from an equilibrium ensemble by a cyclic process, emerges in the quantum situation through the averaging over fluctuations of work. The latter concept is carefully…
In this paper we give a pedagogical introduction to the ideas of quantum thermodynamics and work fluctuations, using only basic concepts from quantum and statistical mechanics. After reviewing the concept of work, as usually taught in…
Work in the paradigm of the quantum fluctuation theorems of Crooks and Jarzynski is determined by projective measurements of energy at the beginning and end of the force protocol. In analogy to classical systems, we consider an alternative…
In quantum mechanics, we define the measuring system $M$ in a selective measurement by two conditions. Firstly, when we define the measured system $S$ as the system in which the non-selective measurement part acts, $M$ is independent from…
In Newtonian mechanics, any closed-system dynamics of a composite system in a microstate will leave all its individual subsystems in distinct microstates, however this fails dramatically in quantum mechanics due to the existence of quantum…
The work is a concept of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. An open question is how to describe the work fluctuation for quantum coherent processes in the presence of initial quantum coherence in the energy basis. With the aim of…
Work is a process-based quantity, and its measurement typically requires interaction with a measuring device multiple times. While classical systems allow for non-invasive and accurate measurements, quantum systems present unique challenges…
We illustrate recent results concerning the validity of the work fluctuation theorem in open quantum systems [M. Campisi, P. Talkner, and P. H\"{a}nggi, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 102}, 210401 (2009)], by applying them to a solvable model of an…
We extend the quantum jump method to nearly adiabatically driven open quantum systems in a way that allows for an accurate account of the external driving in the system-environment interaction. Using this framework, we construct the…
Previously derived expressions for the characteristic function of work performed on a quantum system by a classical external force are generalized to arbitrary initial states of the considered system and to Hamiltonians with degenerate…
One of the most important goals in quantum thermodynamics is to demonstrate advantages of thermodynamic protocols over their classical counterparts. For that, it is necessary to (i) develop theoretical tools and experimental set-ups to deal…
The physical meaning of the operators is not reducible to the intrinsic relations of the quantum system, since unitary transformations can find other operators satisfying the exact same relations. The physical meaning is determined…
Quantum measurement is a physical process. A system and an apparatus interact for a certain time period (measurement time), and during this interaction, information about an observable is transferred from the system to the apparatus. In…
The definitions of gravitational work as well as work done by the total external force on a massive probe particle moving in generic spacetime backgrounds are proposed. These definitions are given in the form of scalar integrals and thus,…
In recent years we have witnessed a concentrated effort to make sense of thermodynamics for small-scale systems. One of the main difficulties is to capture a suitable notion of work that models realistically the purpose of quantum machines,…
There are only a very few known relations in statistical dynamics that are valid for systems driven arbitrarily far-from-equilibrium. One of these is the fluctuation theorem, which places conditions on the entropy production probability…
We consider a quasi-probability distribution of work for an isolated quantum system coupled to the energy-storage device given by the ideal weight. Specifically, we analyze a trade-off between changes in average energy and changes in…