Thermodynamics of autonomous optical Bloch equations

Abstract

Optical Bloch Equations (OBEs) are canonical equations describing the dynamics of a classically driven atom coupled to a thermal bath. Their thermodynamics is highly relevant to establish fundamental energetic bounds of key quantum processes. A consistent framework is available in the regime where the drives and baths can be treated classically, i.e. remains insensitive to the coupling with the atom. This regime, however, is not adapted to explore minimal energy costs, nor to measure atom-induced energy variations inside drives and baths -- a key ability to directly measure and optimize work and heat exchanges. This calls for a new framework accounting for atomic back-actions on drives and baths. Here we build such a framework by describing the atom, the drive and the bath as a joint autonomous system, the drive and the bath being parts of the same electromagnetic field. Our approach captures atom-field correlations at fundamental timescales, as well as the atomic back-action on the field, allowing us to define work-like (heat-like) flows as energy flows stemming from effective unitary dynamics induced by one system on the other (non-unitary correlating dynamics). Time-integrated work-like and heat-like flows are directly measurable in the field, as changes of the mean field and fluctuations, respectively. Our approach differs from standard analyses by identifying an additional unitary contribution in the atom's dynamics, the self-drive, and its energetic counterpart, the self-work, yielding a tighter expression of the second law. We relate this tightening to the extra knowledge about the field state, as well as the potential of the interacted driving field to be recycled. Our autonomous framework deepens the current understanding of thermodynamics in the quantum regime and its potential for energy management at quantum scales.

22+19 pages, 5 figures. Comments are welcome!

References in corpus (66)

• The Quantum Internet
• Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems, and molecular machines
• Quantum information with Rydberg atoms
• Coherent control of macroscopic quantum states in a single-Cooper-pair box
• Trapped-Ion Quantum Computing: Progress and Challenges
• Microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits
• Verification of the Crooks fluctuation theorem and recovery of RNA folding free energies
• Information heat engine: converting information to energy by feedback control
• Superconducting Circuits and Quantum Information
• Fluctuation theorems: Work is not an observable
• Extractable work from ensembles of quantum batteries. Entanglement helps
• Maximal work extraction from quantum systems
• Entropy production as correlation between system and reservoir
• Work extraction and thermodynamics for individual quantum systems
• Quantum Equivalence and Quantum Signatures in Heat Engines
• Irreversible entropy production, from quantum to classical
• Quantum and Information Thermodynamics: A Unifying Framework based on Repeated Interactions
• Input-Output Formalism For Few-Photon Transport in One-Dimensional Nanophotonic Waveguides Coupled to a Qubit
• Quantum collision models: open system dynamics from repeated interactions
• Sub-Natural Linewidth Single Photons from a Quantum Dot
• Observing a quantum Maxwell demon at work
• Measuring the characteristic function of the work distribution
• Reconciliation of quantum local master equations with thermodynamics
• The role of quantum measurement in stochastic thermodynamics
• Quantum technologies need a Quantum Energy Initiative
• No-go theorem for the characterisation of work fluctuations in coherent quantum systems
• Bosonic quantum error correction codes in superconducting quantum circuits
• The energetic cost of work extraction
• Input-Output Theory with Quantum Pulses
• Thermodynamics of weakly coherent collisional models
• A two-qubit engine fueled by entangling operations and local measurements
• Markovian Master Equation and Thermodynamics of Two-level System in Strong Laser Field
• Qubit models of weak continuous measurements
• Collision models in quantum optics
• Collision models in open system dynamics: A versatile tool for deeper insights?
• Local effective dynamics of quantum systems: A generalized approach to work and heat
• Correlations in quantum thermodynamics: Heat, work, and entropy production
• Experimental analysis of energy transfers between a quantum emitter and light fields
• Collisional picture of quantum optics with giant emitters
• Scattering into one-dimensional waveguides from a coherently-driven quantum-optical system
• Stochastic thermodynamics of rapidly driven systems
• Information and thermodynamics: Experimental verification of Landauer's erasure principle
• Energy-Efficient Quantum Computing
• Energetics of a Single Qubit Gate
• Reversible work extraction in a hybrid opto-mechanical system
• Thermodynamics of Optical Bloch Equations
• Roadmap on Quantum Thermodynamics
• Extending the laws of thermodynamics for arbitrary autonomous quantum systems
• An autonomous quantum machine to measure the thermodynamic arrow of time
• Probabilistically Violating the First Law of Thermodynamics in a Quantum Heat Engine
• Quantum thermo-dynamical construction for driven open quantum systems
• Efficiencies for the single mode operation of a quantum optical nonlinear shift gate
• Calorimetry of a Quantum Phase Slip
• Thermalization induced by quantum scattering
• Unification of the first law of quantum thermodynamics
• Quantifying the quantum heat contribution from a driven superconducting circuit
• Detecting an Itinerant Optical Photon Twice without Destroying It
• Steady-state generation of Wigner negative states in 1D resonance fluorescence
• Two-point measurement of entropy production from the outcomes of a single experiment with correlated photon pairs
• Dynamics of a strongly coupled quantum heat engine -- computing bath observables from the hierarchy of pure states
• Extractable work in quantum electromechanics
• Hybrid master equation for calorimetric measurements
• A topologically protected quantum dynamo effect in a driven spin-boson model
• Calorimetric measurement of work for a driven harmonic oscillator
• A Thermodynamic Framework for Coherently Driven Systems
• Amplifying microwave pulses with a single qubit engine fueled by quantum measurements