The role of quantum measurement in stochastic thermodynamics

By Cyril Elouard, David A. Herrera-Martí, M. Clusel, Alexia Auffèves. 2016

211 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article sets up a new formalism to investigate stochastic thermodynamics in the quantum regime, where stochasticity and irreversibility primarily come from quantum measurement. In the absence of any bath, we define a purely quantum component to heat exchange, that corresponds to energy fluctuations caused by quantum measurement. Energetic and entropic signatures of measurement-induced irreversibility are then explored for canonical experiments of quantum optics, and the energetic cost of counter-acting decoherence is studied on a simple state-stabilizing protocol. By placing quantum measurement in a central position, our formalism contributes to bridge a gap between experimental quantum optics and quantum thermodynamics, and opens new paths to characterize the energetic features of quantum processing.Rebuilding quantum thermodynamics on quantum measurementMeasuring a quantum system is an ultimately random operation. It induces a genuinely quantum time arrow, increasing the system’s entropy. But because it perturbs its state, quantum measurement also provides energy to the quantum system. These energetic quantum fluctuations play the same role as thermal fluctuations in thermodynamics, while being of quantum nature. Building on such “Quantum Heat”, a group of scientists from france provided a thermodynamic analyzis of canonical experiments of quantum optics. They show that quantum heat is a major concept to evaluate the performances of a basic protocol to counteract the decoherence of a quantum bit. The findings pave the way towards a new generation of quantum engines, powered by quantum measurement. They bring new tools to investigate the energetic cost of quantum protocols performed at ultra-low temperature, in the presence of decoherence.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/75dd992051789475e4d2edba608b58d280ac988e

How researchers see this paper

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

In Artificial Intelligence

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Citations in the corpus

Quantum Fluctuation Theorems for Arbitrary Environments: Adiabatic and Nonadiabatic Entropy Production (2017, background): “This energy transfer does not change the entropy of the universe and has been categorized either as “measurement work” [31, 74] or as “quantum heat” [54, 55] due to measurement.”
The role of quantum coherence in non-equilibrium entropy production (2017, background): “By construction, σ satisfies a detailed fluctuation theorem [40, 48, 49]”
Irreversible entropy production: From classical to quantum (2020, background): “This choice ensures that the ensemble entropy of ρ′S remains unaffected by the measurement backaction (Elouard et al., 2017; Santos et al., 2019), even though it kills any quantum correlations present in ρ′S E .”