Related papers: Thermodynamics of decoherence
Electronic decoherence processes in molecules and materials are usually thought and modeled via schemes for the system-bath evolution in which the bath is treated either implicitly or approximately. Here we present computations of the…
The study of thermodynamic fluctuations allows one to relate the free energy difference between two equilibrium states with the work done on a system through processes far from equilibrium. This finding plays a crucial role in the quantum…
Particles subject to weak contact interactions in a finite-size lattice tend to thermalise. The Hamiltonian evolution ensures energy conservation and the final temperature is fully determined by the initial conditions. In this work we show…
In the framework of the theory of open systems based on completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, we determine the degree of quantum decoherence of a harmonic oscillator interacting with a thermal bath. It is found that the system…
We introduce the idea of weakly coherent collisional models, where the elements of an environment interacting with a system of interest are prepared in states that are approximately thermal, but have an amount of coherence proportional to a…
We study the decoherence induced by the environment over a composite quantum system, comprising two coupled subsystems A and B, which may be a harmonic or an upside-down oscillators. We analyze the case in which the B-subsystem is in direct…
Absorption refrigerators transfer thermal energy from a cold reservoir to a hot reservoir using input energy from a third, so-called work reservoir. We examine the operation of quantum absorption refrigerators when coherences between…
We describe some general results that constrain the dynamical fluctuations that can occur in non-equilibrium steady states, with a focus on molecular dynamics. That is, we consider Hamiltonian systems, coupled to external heat baths, and…
We analyze the separability of the joint state of a collection of two-level systems at finite temperature T. The fact that only separable states are found in the neighborhood of their thermal equilibrium state guarantees that decoherence…
The second law of thermodynamics is a fundamental law of Nature. It is almost universally associated with the Clausius inequality that lower bounds a change in entropy by the ratio of supplied heat and temperature. However, this result…
Light-harvesting via the transport and trapping of optically-induced electronic excitations is of fundamental interest to the design of new energy efficient quantum technologies. Using a paradigmatic quantum optical model, we study the…
The conditions under which an open quantum mechanical system may be described by mixed quantum-classical dynamics are investigated. Decoherence is studied using influence functional methods in a model composite quantum system comprising two…
Effect of a complicated many-body environment is analyzed on the electron random scattering by a 2D mesoscopic open ballistic structure. A new mechanism of decoherence is proposed. The temperature of the environment is supposed to be zero…
Thermal fluctuations tend to destroy long-range phase correlations. Consequently, bosons in a lattice will undergo a transition from a phase-coherent superfluid as the temperature rises. Contrary to common intuition, however, we show that…
Standard thermometry employs the thermalisation of a probe with the system of interest. This approach can be extended by incorporating the possibility of using the non-equilibrium states of the probe, and the presence of coherence. Here, we…
We consider quantum decoherence in solid-state systems by studying the transverse dynamics of a single qubit interacting with a fermionic bath and driven by external pulses. Our interest is in investigating the extent to which the lost…
We investigate conservation laws in the quantum mechanics of closed systems. We review an argument showing that exact decoherence implies the exact conservation of quantities that commute with the Hamiltonian including the total energy and…
Decoherence effects at finite temperature (T) are examined for two manifestly quantum systems: (i) Casimir forces between parallel plates that conduct along different directions, and (ii) a topological Aharonov-Bohm (AB) type force between…
The longitudinal coupling of a system to the bath usually induces the pure dephasing of the system. In this paper, we study the collective dephasing induced dissipation and decoherence in a coupled-qubit system with a common bath. It is…
We investigate the influence of nearby two-level systems on the dynamics of a qubit. The intrinsic decoherence is given by a coupling of both the qubit and the two-level systems to a heat bath. Assuming weak interactions between the qubit…