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Related papers: Fluctuation theorems: Work is not an observable

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We analyze the microscopic evolution of a system undergoing a far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic process. Explicitly accounting for the degrees of freedom of participating heat reservoirs, we derive a hybrid result, similar in form to both…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 C. Jarzynski

We reconsider a well-known relationship between the fluctuation theorem and the second law of thermodynamics by evaluating a probability measure-valued process. In order to establish a bridge between microscopic and macroscopic behaviors,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-03-19 Yuki Sughiyama , Masayuki Ohzeki

Determining the work which is supplied to a system by an external agent, provides a crucial step in any experimental realization of transient fluctuation relations. This, however, poses a problem for quantum systems, where the standard…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2014-05-15 Gentaro Watanabe , B. Prasanna Venkatesh , Peter Talkner

Research on the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of quantum systems has so far produced important statements on the thermodynamics of small systems undergoing quantum mechanical evolutions. Key examples are provided by the Crooks and Jarzynski…

In this paper we aim at characterizing the effect of stochastic fluctuations on the distribution of the energy exchanged by a quantum system with an external environment under sequences of quantum measurements performed at random times.…

While techniques to compute thermal fluctuation induced, or pseudo-Casimir, forces in equilibrium systems are well established, the same is not true for non-equilibrium cases. We present a general formalism that allows us to unambiguously…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2009-08-10 David S. Dean , Ajay Gopinathan

A superconducting cavity model was proposed as a way to experimentally investigate the work performed in a quantum system. We found a simple mathematical relationship between the free energy variation and visibility measurement in quantum…

This article traces the development of fluctuation theory and its deep connection to irreversibility, from equilibrium to near-equilibrium, and finally to far-from-equilibrium systems. Classical fluctuation theorems, which capture the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-30 Sounak Bandyopadhyay , Arnab Ghosh

Two approaches to small-scale and quantum thermodynamics are fluctuation relations and one-shot statistical mechanics. Fluctuation relations (such as Crooks' Theorem and Jarzynski's Equality) relate nonequilibrium behaviors to equilibrium…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-09-16 Nicole Yunger Halpern , Andrew J. P. Garner , Oscar C. O. Dahlsten , Vlatko Vedral

We consider a particle dragged through a medium at constant temperature as described by a Langevin equation with a time-dependent potential. The time-dependence is specified by an external protocol. We give conditions on potential and…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-08-21 Marco Baiesi , Tim Jacobs , Christian Maes , Nikos S. Skantzos

For driven open systems in contact with multiple heat reservoirs, we find the marginal distributions of work or heat do not satisfy any fluctuation theorem, but only the joint distribution of work and heat satisfies a family of fluctuation…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2023-03-08 Jin-Fu Chen , H. T. Quan

The asymptotic behaviour of the work probability distribution in driven non-equilibrium systems is determined using the method of optimal fluctuations. For systems described by Langevin dynamics the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equation…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-05-29 A. Engel

The Hamilton principle is a variation principle describing the isolated and conservative systems, its Lagrange function is the difference between kinetic energy and potential energy. By Feynman path integration, we can obtain the Hermitian…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-10-12 Xiang-Yao Wu , Ben-Shan Wu , Meng Han , Ming-Li Ren , Heng-Mei Li , Hong-Chun Yuan , Hong Li , Si-Qi Zhang

We derive analogues of the Jarzynski equality and Crooks relation to characterise the nonequilibrium work associated with changes in the spring constant of an overdamped oscillator in a quadratically varying spatial temperature profile. The…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2015-09-30 Ian J. Ford , Robert W. Eyre

We present a fluctuation relation for heat dissipation in a nonequilibrium system. A nonequilibrium work is known to obey the fluctuation theorem in any time interval $t$. A heat, which differs from a work by an energy change, is shown to…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2012-06-19 Jae Dong Noh , Jong-Min Park

A finite quantum system evolving unitarily equilibrates in a probabilistic fashion. In the general many-body setting the time-fluctuations of an observable \mathcal{A} are typically exponentially small in the system size. We consider here…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2013-01-22 Lorenzo Campos Venuti , Paolo Zanardi

A fluctuation relation, which is an extended form of the Jarzynski equality, is introduced and discussed. We show how to apply this relation in order to evaluate the free energy landscape of simple systems. These systems are manipulated by…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2007-05-23 A. Imparato , L. Peliti

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…

We propose a method to evaluate general thermodynamic fluctuations in open quantum systems, based on performing a two-point measurement scheme on the system using dynamics-dependent thermodynamic observables. Our approach allows one to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-30 Alessandra Colla , Andrea Smirne , Heinz-Peter Breuer , Bassano Vacchini

The Jarzynski equality allows the calculation of free-energy differences using values of work measured from nonequilibrium trajectories. The number of trajectories required to accurately estimate free-energy differences in this way grows…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2025-05-13 Stephen Whitelam