Local effective dynamics of quantum systems: A generalized approach to work and heat

Abstract

By computing the local energy expectation values with respect to some local measurement basis we show that for any quantum system there are two fundamentally different contributions: changes in energy that do not alter the local von Neumann entropy and changes that do. We identify the former as work and the latter as heat. Since our derivation makes no assumptions on the system Hamiltonian or its state, the result is valid even for states arbitrarily far from equilibrium. Examples are discussed ranging from the classical limit to purely quantum mechanical scenarios, i.e. where the Hamiltonian and the density operator do not commute.

5 pages, 1 figure, published version

References in corpus (9)

• The second law, Maxwell's daemon and work derivable from quantum heat engines
• Algorithmic Cooling and Scalable NMR Quantum Computers
• Experimental implementation of heat-bath algorithmic cooling using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance
• Existence of temperature on the nanoscale
• Driven Spin Systems as Quantum Thermodynamic Machines: Fundamental Limits
• A Cyclic Cooling Algorithm
• Local Versus Global Thermal States: Correlations and the Existence of Local Temperatures
• Entanglement and the factorization-approximation
• Small quantum networks operating as quantum thermodynamic machines

Cited by in corpus (60)

• Quantum and Information Thermodynamics: A Unifying Framework based on Repeated Interactions
• Virtual qubits, virtual temperatures, and the foundations of thermodynamics
• Nonequilibrium thermodynamics in the strong coupling and non-Markovian regime based on a reaction coordinate mapping
• Variational principle for steady states of dissipative quantum many-body systems
• Quantum thermal absorption machines: refrigerators, engines and clocks
• Thermodynamics of discrete quantum processes
• Correlations in quantum thermodynamics: Heat, work, and entropy production
• Experimental analysis of energy transfers between a quantum emitter and light fields
• Maximally and minimally correlated states attainable within a closed evolving system
• Quantum thermal machines with single nonequilibrium environments
• Information and entropy in quantum Brownian motion: Thermodynamic entropy versus von Neumann entropy
• Heat flux operator, current conservation and the formal Fourier's law
• Entropy-Based Formulation of Thermodynamics in Arbitrary Quantum Evolution
• The Asymptotic Cooling of Heat-Bath Algorithmic Cooling
• Open-system approach to nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics at arbitrary coupling
• Entropy production and asymptotic factorization via thermalization: a collisional model approach
• Local Temperatures Out of Equilibrium
• The fourth law of thermodynamics: steepest entropy ascent
• Quantum Otto cycle efficiency on coupled qudits
• Thermodynamics of complexity and pattern manipulation
• Semi-optimal Practicable Algorithmic Cooling
• Extending the laws of thermodynamics for arbitrary autonomous quantum systems
• Quantum driving and work
• On the contribution of work or heat in exchanged energy via interaction in open bipartite quantum systems
• Quantum Mutual Information Along Unitary Orbits
• Effective thermodynamics of strongly coupled qubits
• Quantum mechanical work
• Work exchange between quantum systems: the spin-oscillator model
• Fluctuations of work in nearly adiabatically driven open quantum systems
• Dynamically Emergent Quantum Thermodynamics: Non-Markovian Otto Cycle
• Exploring quantum thermodynamics with NMR
• Algorithmic Cooling in Liquid State NMR
• Work and Heat Value of Bound Entanglement
• Trade-off Between Work and Correlations in Quantum Thermodynamics
• Quantum work by a single photon
• The most elementary heat to work conversion: work extraction from a completely passive state by a single photon
• Tailored jump operators for purely dissipative quantum magnetism
• Clausius inequality versus quantum coherence
• Identifying quantum subsystems using Clausius' second law of thermodynamics
• Anti-Dynamical Casimir Effect as a Resource for Work Extraction
• The entropy production of thermal operations
• A Schmidt decomposition approach to quantum thermodynamics
• Quantum Carnot thermal machines re-examined: Definition of efficiency and the effects of strong coupling
• Fluctuation theorems for genuine quantum mechanical regimes
• Work, Heat and Internal Energy in Open Quantum Systems: A Comparison of Four Approaches from the Autonomous System Framework
• Effect of inter-system coupling on heat transport in a microscopic collision model
• Thermal topological phase transition in SnTe from \emph{ab-initio} calculations
• Decoupled heat and charge rectification as a many-body effect in quantum wires
• First Law of Quantum Thermodynamics in a Driven Open Two-Level System
• Reservoir-Free Decoherence in Flying Qubits
• A constraint on local definitions of quantum internal energy
• An atom-doped photon engine: Extracting mechanical work from a quantum system via radiation pressure
• Decomposition of radiation energy into work and heat
• Energy additivity as a requirement for universal quantum thermodynamical frameworks
• Local energy assignment for two interacting quantum thermal reservoirs
• Thermodynamics of autonomous optical Bloch equations
• Towards practical secure delegated quantum computing with semi-classical light
• The concept of minimal dissipation and the identification of work in autonomous systems: A view from classical statistical physics
• Probing non-classical light fields with energetic witnesses in Waveguide Quantum Electro-Dynamics
• Photovoltaic properties evaluated by its thermodynamic evolution in a double quantum dot photocell