The role of coherence in the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of quantum systems
Abstract
Exploiting the relative entropy of coherence, we isolate the coherent contribution in the energetics of a driven non-equilibrium quantum system. We prove that a division of the irreversible work can be made into a coherent and incoherent part, which provides an operational criterion for quantifying the coherent contribution in a generic non-equilibrium transformation on a closed quantum system. We then study such a contribution in two physical models of a driven qubit and kicked rotor. In addition, we also show that coherence generation is connected to the non-adiabaticity of a processes, for which it gives the dominant contribution for slow-enough transformation. The amount of generated coherence in the energy eigenbasis is equivalent to the change in diagonal entropy, and here we show that it fulfills a fluctuation theorem.
- Publication:
-
arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- July 2017
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.1707.06950
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1707.06950
- Bibcode:
- 2017arXiv170706950F
- Keywords:
-
- Quantum Physics;
- Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics
- E-Print:
- comments welcome