English

Semi-classical work and quantum work identities in Weyl representation

Quantum Physics 2020-09-25 v2 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We derive a semi-classical nonequilibrium work identity by applying the Wigner-Weyl quantization scheme to the Jarzynski identity for a classical Hamiltonian. This allows us, to the leading order in \hbar, to overcome the problem of defining the concept of work in quantum mechanics. We propose a geometric interpretation of this semi-classical relation in terms of trajectories in a complex phase space and illustrate it with the exactly solvable case of the quantum harmonic oscillator.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.04969,
  title  = {Semi-classical work and quantum work identities in Weyl representation},
  author = {O. Brodier and K. Mallick and A. M. Ozorio de Almeida},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.04969},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

19 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:42:01.144Z