Heat dissipation and fluctuations in a driven quantum dot

Abstract

While thermodynamics is a useful tool to describe the driving of large systems close to equilibrium, fluctuations dominate the distribution of heat and work in small systems and far from equilibrium. We study the heat generated by driving a small system and change the drive parameters to analyse the transition from a drive leaving the system close to equilibrium to driving it far from equilibrium. Our system is a quantum dot in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure hosting a two-dimensional electron gas. The dot is tunnel-coupled to one part of the two-dimensional electron gas acting as a heat and particle reservoir. We use standard rate equations to model the driven dot-reservoir system and find excellent agreement with the experiment. Additionally, we quantify the fluctuations by experimentally test the theoretical concept of the arrow of time, predicting our ability to distinguish whether a process goes in the forward or backward drive direction.

References in corpus (4)

• Experimental Test of Quantum Jarzynski Equality with a Trapped Ion System
• Fluctuation Theorem for Arbitrary Open Quantum Systems
• Test of Jarzynski and Crooks fluctuation relations in an electronic system
• Bayesian estimates of free energies from nonequilibrium work data in the presence of instrument noise

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Maxwell's demon across the quantum-to-classical transition
• Asymmetries of thermal processes in open quantum systems
• Quantum work statistics across a critical point: full crossover from sudden quench to the adiabatic limit
• Information-to-work conversion in single molecule experiments: from discrete to continuous feedback
• Measuring work in quantum many-body systems using a dynamical "work agent"
• Heat, work, and fluctuations in a driven quantum resonator
• Fluctuations of Heat in Driven Two-State Systems: Application to Single-Electron Box with Superconducting Gap
• Precision of an autonomous demon exploiting nonthermal resources and information