English

Work fluctuation theorem for a classical circuit coupled to a quantum conductor

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2012-10-09 v1

Abstract

We propose a setup for a quantitative test of the quantum fluctuation theorem. It consists of a quantum conductor, driven by an external voltage source, and a classical inductor-capacitor circuit. The work done on the system by the voltage source can be expressed by the classical degrees of freedom of the LC circuit, which are measurable by conventional techniques. In this way the circuit acts as a classical detector to perform measurements of the quantum conductor. We prove that this definition is consistent with the work fluctuation theorem. The system under consideration is effectively described by a Langevin equation with non-Gaussian white noise. Our analysis extends the proof of the fluctuation theorem to this situation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1202.1700,
  title  = {Work fluctuation theorem for a classical circuit coupled to a quantum conductor},
  author = {Y. Utsumi and D. S. Golubev and M. Marthaler and Gerd Schön and Kensuke Kobayashi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.1700},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

8 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:16:32.191Z