Related papers: Fluctuation theorems: Work is not an observable
We propose a definition of externally measurable quantum work in driven systems. Work is given as a quantum observable on a control device which is forcing the system and can be determined without knowledge of the system Hamiltonian…
The characteristic function for the joint measurement of the changes of two commuting observables upon an external forcing of a quantum system is derived. In particular, the statistics of the internal energy, the exchanged heat and the work…
The classical Jarzynski equality establishes an exact relation between the stochastic work performed on a system driven out of thermal equilibrium and the free energy difference in a corresponding quasi-static process. This fluctuation…
The concept of work is basic for statistical thermodynamics. To gain a fuller understanding of work and its (quantum) features, it needs to be represented as an average of a fluctuating quantity. Here I focus on the work done between two…
Thermodynamics constrains changes to the energy of a system, both deliberate and random, via its first and second laws. When the system is not in equilibrium, fluctuation theorems such as the Jarzynski equality further restrict the…
The Fluctuation Theorems are a group of exact relations that remain valid irrespective of how far the system has been driven away from equilibrium. Other than having practical applications, like determination of equilibrium free energy…
The universal quantum work relation connects a functional of an arbitrary observable averaged over the forward process to the free energy difference and another functional averaged over the time-reversed process. Here, we ask the question…
Of indisputable relevance for non-equilibrium thermodynamics, fluctuations theorems have been generalized to the framework of quantum thermodynamics, with the notion of work playing a key role in such contexts. The typical approach consists…
A result of great theoretical and experimental interest, Jarzynski equality predicts a free energy change $\Delta F$ of a system at inverse temperature $\beta$ from an ensemble average of non-equilibrium exponential work, i.e., $\langle…
This is a brief review of recently derived relations describing the behaviour of systems far from equilibrium. They include the Fluctuation Theorem, Jarzynski's and Crooks' equalities, and an extended form of the Second Principle for…
When a thermally isolated system performs a driving process in the quasistatic regime, its variation of average energy is equal to its quasistatic work. Even though presenting this simple definition, few attempts have been made to describe…
Based on the observation that the thermodynamic equilibrium free energy of an open quantum system in contact with a thermal environment can be understood as the difference between the free energy of the total system and that of the bare…
There is evidence that taking the time average of the work performed by a thermally isolated system effectively "transforms" the adiabatic process into an isothermal one. This approach allows inherent quantities of adiabatic processes to be…
The work content of non-equilibrium systems in relation to a heat bath is often analyzed in terms of expectation values of an underlying random work variable. However, we show that when optimizing the expectation value of the extracted…
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…
We give a quantum version of the Jarzynski relation between the distribution of work done over a certain time-interval on a system and the difference of equilibrium free energies. The main new ingredient is the identification of work…
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…
It is shown that the work fluctuations and work distribution functions are fundamentally different in systems with short-range versus long-range correlations. The two cases considered with long- range correlations are magnetic work…
Using the Feynman-Kac formula, a work fluctuation theorem for a Brownian particle in a nonconfining potential, e.g., a potential well with finite depth, is derived. The theorem yields aninequality that puts a lower bound on the average work…
Nonequilibrium work-Hamiltonian connection for a microstate plays a central role in diverse branches of statistical thermodynamics (fluctuation theorems, quantum thermodynamics, stochastic thermodynamics, etc.). We show that the change in…