Quantum Jarzynski equality of measurement-based work extraction

Abstract

Many studies of quantum-size heat engines assume that the dynamics of an internal system is unitary and that the extracted work is equal to the energy loss of the internal system. Both assumptions, however, should be under scrutiny. In the present paper, we analyze quantum-scale heat engines, employing the measurement-based formulation of the work extraction recently introduced by Hayashi and Tajima~[arXiv:1504.06150]. We first demonstrate the inappropriateness of the unitary time evolution of the internal system (namely the first assumption above) using a simple two-level system; we show that the variance of the energy transferred to an external system diverges when the dynamics of the internal system is approximated to a unitary time evolution. We second derive the quantum Jarzynski equality based on the formulation of Hayashi and Tajima as a relation for the work measured by an external macroscopic apparatus. The right-hand side of the equality reduces to unity for "natural" cyclic processes, but fluctuates wildly for non-cyclic ones, exceeding unity often. This fluctuation should be detectable in experiments and provide evidence for the present formulation.

13 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Quantum Jarzynski Equality in Open Quantum Systems from the One-Time Measurement Scheme
• A quantum Szilard engine without heat from a thermal reservoir
• Uncertainty relations in implementation of unitary operations
• Efficiency versus Speed in Quantum Heat Engines: Rigorous Constraint from Lieb-Robinson Bound
• Energetic footprints of irreversibility in the quantum regime
• Coherence cost for violating conservation laws
• Universal limitations on implementing resourceful unitary evolutions
• Jarzynski equality for conditional stochastic work
• Saturation of entropy production in quantum many-body systems
• Detailed fluctuation theorem from the one-time measurement scheme
• Classicality of the heat produced by quantum measurements
• Work Required for Selective Quantum Measurement
• Thermodynamic perspective on quantum fluctuations