Emergence of thermodynamic behavior within composite quantum systems

Abstract

Entanglement within a given device provides a potential resource for quantum information processing. Entanglement between system and environment leads to decoherence (thus suppressing non-classical features within the system) but also opens up a route to robust and universal control. The latter is related to thermodynamic equilibrium, a generic behavior of bi-partite quantum systems. Fingerprints of this equilibrium behavior (including relaxation and stability) show up already far from the thermodynamic limit, where a complete solution of the underlying Schroedinger dynamics of the total system is still feasible.

12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Physica E

References in corpus (4)

• A Dynamical Approach to Temperature
• Quantum Approach to a Derivation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
• Work fluctuations, transient violations of the second law and free-energy recovery methods: Perspectives in Theory and Experiments
• Relaxation into equilibrium under pure Schrödinger dynamics

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• Dynamic entanglement in oscillating molecules and potential biological implications
• Out-of-equilibrium operation of a quantum heat engine: The cost of thermal coupling control
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• Emergence of equilibrium thermodynamic properties in quantum pure states. I. Theory
• Fluctuation Theorems and the Generalised Gibbs Ensemble in Integrable Systems
• Horizon entanglement area law from regular black hole thermodynamics
• Entanglement complexity of the Rokhsar-Kivelson-sign wavefunctions
• Interplay of entanglement structures and stabilizer entropy in spin models
• Channels, measurements and post-selection in quantum thermodynamics
• Quantum thermal rectification via state-dependent two-photon dissipation