Reconciliation of quantum local master equations with thermodynamics

By G. De Chiara, Gabriel T. Landi, A. Hewgill, B. Reid, A. Ferraro, A. Roncaglia, M. Antezza. New Journal of Physics, 2018

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The study of open quantum systems often relies on approximate master equations derived under the assumptions of weak coupling to the environment. However when the system is made of several interacting subsystems such a derivation is in many cases very hard. An alternative method, employed especially in the modeling of transport in mesoscopic systems, consists in using local master equations (LMEs) containing Lindblad operators acting locally only on the corresponding subsystem. It has been shown that this approach however generates inconsistencies with the laws of thermodynamics. In this paper we demonstrate that using a microscopic model of LMEs based on repeated collisions all thermodynamic inconsistencies can be resolved by correctly taking into account the breaking of global detailed balance related to the work cost of maintaining the collisions. We provide examples based on a chain of quantum harmonic oscillators whose ends are connected to thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. We prove that this system behaves precisely as a quantum heat engine or refrigerator, with properties that are fully consistent with basic thermodynamics.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/14e3ccc3ea26ee11e10fcaecc5bd89ebfef562e4

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Bayan Karimi
2. Mauro Paternostro
3. Jukka P. Pekola
4. Gabriel T. Landi

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. Mauro Paternostro
2. Bayan Karimi
3. Gabriel T. Landi
4. Jukka P. Pekola

Citations in the corpus

• Irreversible entropy production: From classical to quantum (2020, methodology): “The situation described above happens often when the system is composed of multiple interacting parts, but with only one of the parts coupled to the ancillas (Barra, 2015; De Chiara et al., 2018; Pereira, 2018).”
• Colloquium : Quantum heat transport in condensed matter systems (2021, methodology): “In (Chiatti et al., 2006), they made a similar experiment with the same philosophy but with improved control of the structure and system parameters.”