Quantum processes as thermodynamic resources: the role of non-Markovianity

Abstract

Quantum thermodynamics studies how quantum systems and operations may be exploited as sources of work to perform useful thermodynamic tasks. In real-world conditions, the evolution of open quantum systems typically displays memory effects, resulting in a non-Markovian dynamics. The associated information backflow has been observed to provide advantage in certain thermodynamic tasks. However, a general operational connection between non-Markovianity and thermodynamics in the quantum regime has remained elusive. Here, we analyze the role of non-Markovianity in the central task of extracting work via thermal operations from general multitime quantum processes, as described by process tensors. By defining a hierarchy of four classes of extraction protocols, expressed as quantum combs, we reveal three different physical mechanisms (work investment, multitime correlations, and system-environment correlations) through which non-Markovianity increases the work distillable from the process. The advantages arising from these mechanisms are linked precisely to a quantifier of the non-Markovianity of the process. These results show in very general terms how non-Markovianity of any given quantum process is a fundamental resource that unlocks an enhanced performance in thermodynamics.

References in corpus (6)

• Quantum Non-Markovianity: Characterization, Quantification and Detection
• Operational Markov condition for quantum processes
• Non-Markov Enhancement of Maximum Power for Quantum Thermal Machines
• Non-thermal quantum channels as a thermodynamical resource
• Relations between Markovian and non-Markovian correlations in multitime quantum processes
• Process tensor distinguishability measures

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Deterministic Equations for Feedback Control of Open Quantum Systems II: Properties of the memory function
• Purely quantum memory in closed systems observed via imperfect measurements
• Quantum geometric tensor determines the pure-state i.i.d. conversion rate in the resource theory of asymmetry for any compact Lie group