Joint measurability in nonequilibrium quantum thermodynamics

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftForschungsartikelBeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

Abstract

In this Letter we investigate the concept of quantum work and its measurability from the viewpoint of quantum measurement theory. Very often, quantum work and fluctuation theorems are discussed in the framework of projective two-point measurement (TPM) schemes. According to a well-known no-go theorem, there is no work observable which satisfies both (i) an average work condition and (ii) the TPM statistics for diagonal input states. Such projective measurements represent a restrictive class among all possible measurements. It is desirable, both from a theoretical and experimental point of view, to extend the scheme to the general case including suitably designed unsharp measurements. This shifts the focus to the question of what information about work and its fluctuations one is able to extract from such generalized measurements. We show that the no-go theorem no longer holds if the observables in a TPM scheme are jointly measurable for any intermediate unitary evolution. We explicitly construct a model with unsharp energy measurements and derive bounds for the visibility that ensure joint measurability. In such an unsharp scenario a single work measurement apparatus can be constructed that allows us to determine the correct average work and to obtain free energy differences with the help of a Jarzynski equality.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
AufsatznummerL022101
Seitenumfang6
FachzeitschriftPhysical Review E
Jahrgang2022
Ausgabenummer106
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 1 Aug. 2022
Peer-Review-StatusJa

Externe IDs

PubMed 36109912
Scopus 85137209596
ORCID /0000-0002-7806-3525/work/142234215
ORCID /0000-0002-1864-4520/work/142234864

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