Measuring work and heat in ultracold quantum gases

Abstract

We propose a feasible experimental scheme to direct measure heat and work in cold atomic setups. The method is based on a recent proposal which shows that work is a positive operator valued measure (POVM). In the present contribution, we demonstrate that the interaction between the atoms and the light polarisation of a probe laser allows us to implement such POVM. In this way the work done on or extracted from the atoms after a given process is encoded in the light quadrature that can be measured with a standard homodyne detection. The protocol allows one to verify fluctuation theorems and study properties of the non-unitary dynamics of a given thermodynamic process.

Published version in the Focus Issue on "Quantum Thermodynamics"

References in corpus (12)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Fluctuation theorems: Work is not an observable
• Experimental Test of Quantum Jarzynski Equality with a Trapped Ion System
• Fluctuation Theorem for Arbitrary Open Quantum Systems
• The Statistics of the Work Done on a Quantum Critical System by Quenching a Control Parameter
• Test of Jarzynski and Crooks fluctuation relations in an electronic system
• Work measurement as a generalized quantum measurement
• Employing trapped cold ions to verify the quantum Jarzynski equality
• Assessing the non-equilibrium thermodynamics in a quenched quantum many-body system via single projective measurements
• Multimode entanglement of light and atomic ensembles via off-resonant coherent forward scattering
• Work fluctuations in quantum spin chains
• Characterization of Bose-Hubbard Models with Quantum Non-demolition Measurements

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Using a quantum work meter to test non-equilibrium fluctuation theorems
• Probing Quantum Interference Effects in the Work Distribution
• Quasiprobabilities in quantum thermodynamics and many-body systems
• Work fluctuations and entanglement in quantum batteries
• Experimentally reducing the quantum measurement back-action in work distributions by a collective measurement
• Nonlinear, Nonequilibrium and Collective Dynamics in a Periodically Modulated Cold Atom System
• Entropy of the quantum work distribution
• Enantiomer detection via Quantum Otto cycle
• Two-point measurement energy statistics from particle scattering
• Entropic Fluctuations in Statistical Mechanics II. Quantum Dynamical Systems
• A Wigner quasiprobability distribution of work
• Single energy measurement Integral Fluctuation theorem and non-projective measurements
• Revising the quantum work fluctuation framework to encompass energy conservation
• Finite resolution ancilla-assisted measurements of quantum work distributions
• Miniatures on Open Quantum Systems
• Quantum thermodynamics under continuous monitoring: a general framework