Work, Heat and Internal Energy in Open Quantum Systems: A Comparison of Four Approaches from the Autonomous System Framework

Abstract

We compare definitions of the internal energy of an open quantum system and strategies to split the internal energy into work and heat contributions as given by four different approaches from autonomous system framework. Our discussion focuses on methods that allow for arbitrary environments (not just heat baths) and driving by a quantum mechanical system. As a simple application we consider an atom as the system of interest and an oscillator field mode as the environment. Three different types of coupling are analyzed. We discuss ambiguities in the definitions and highlight differences that appear if one aims at constructing environments that act as pure heat or work reservoirs. Further, we identify different sources of work (e.g. coherence, correlations, or frequency offset), depending on the underlying framework. Finally, we give arguments to favour the approach based on minimal dissipation.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Unveiling coherent dynamics in non-Markovian open quantum systems: exact expression and recursive perturbation expansion
• Local energy assignment for two interacting quantum thermal reservoirs
• Energy additivity as a requirement for universal quantum thermodynamical frameworks
• The concept of minimal dissipation and the identification of work in autonomous systems: A view from classical statistical physics
• From the Choi Formalism in Infinite Dimensions to Unique Decompositions of Generators of Completely Positive Dynamical Semigroups