Work Fluctuations in Slow Processes: Quantum Signatures and Optimal Control
Abstract
An important result in classical stochastic thermodynamics is the work fluctuation-dissipation relation (FDR), which states that the dissipated work done along a slow process is proportional to the resulting work fluctuations. We show that slowly driven quantum systems violate this FDR whenever quantum coherence is generated along the protocol, and we derive a quantum generalization of the work FDR. The additional quantum terms in the FDR are found to lead to a non-Gaussian work distribution. Fundamentally, our result shows that quantum fluctuations prohibit finding slow protocols that minimize both dissipation and fluctuations simultaneously, in contrast to classical slow processes. Instead, we develop a quantum geometric framework to find processes with an optimal trade-off between the two quantities.
- Publication:
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Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.230603
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1905.07328
- Bibcode:
- 2019PhRvL.123w0603M
- Keywords:
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- Quantum Physics;
- Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics
- E-Print:
- 18 pages, 3 figures, comments welcome