Motivated by the recent interest in thermodynamics of micro- and mesoscopic quantum systems we study the maximal amount of work that can be reversibly extracted from a quantum system used to temporarily store energy. Guided by the notion of passivity of a quantum state we show that entangling unitary controls extract in general more work than independent ones. In the limit of a large number of copies one can reach the thermodynamical bound given by the variational principle for the free energy.
Motivated by the recent interest in thermodynamics of micro- and mesoscopic quantum systems we study the maximal amount of work that can be reversibly extracted from a quantum system used to temporarily store energy. Guided by the notion of passivity of a quantum state we show that entangling unitary controls extract in general more work than independent ones. In the limit of a large number of copies one can reach the thermodynamical bound given by the variational principle for the free energy.
We consider reversible work extraction from identical quantum batteries. From an ensemble of individually passive states, work can be produced only via global unitary (and thus entangling) operations. However, we show here that there always exists a method to extract all possible work without creating any entanglement, at the price of generically requiring more operations (i.e. additional time). We then study faster methods to extract work and provide a quantitative relation between the amount of generated multipartite entanglement and extractable work. Our results suggest a general relation between entanglement generation and the power of work extraction.
Quantum states that can yield work in a cyclical Hamiltonian process form one of the primary resources in the context of quantum thermodynamics. Conversely, states whose average energy cannot be lowered by unitary transformations are called passive. However, while work may be extracted from non-passive states using arbitrary unitaries, the latter may be hard to realize in practice. It is therefore pertinent to consider the passivity of states under restricted classes of operations that can be feasibly implemented. Here, we ask how restrictive the class of Gaussian unitaries is for the task of work extraction. We investigate the notion of Gaussian passivity, that is, we present necessary and sufficient criteria identifying all states whose energy cannot be lowered by Gaussian unitaries. For all other states we give a prescription for the Gaussian operations that extract the maximal amount of energy. Finally, we show that the gap between passivity and Gaussian passivity is maximal, i.e., Gaussian-passive states may still have a maximal amount of energy that is extractable by arbitrary unitaries, even under entropy constraints.
One of the most fundamental tasks in quantum thermodynamics is extracting energy from one system and subsequently storing this energy in an appropriate battery. Both of these steps, work extraction and charging, can be viewed as cyclic Hamiltonian processes acting on individual quantum systems. Interestingly, so-called passive states exist, whose energy cannot be lowered by unitary operations, but it is safe to assume that the energy of any not fully charged battery may be increased unitarily. However, unitaries raising the average energy by the same amount may differ in qualities such as their precision, fluctuations, and charging power. Moreover, some unitaries may be extremely difficult to realize in practice. It is hence of crucial importance to understand the qualities that can be expected from practically implementable transformations. Here, we consider the limitations on charging batteries when restricting to the feasibly realizable family of Gaussian unitaries. We derive optimal protocols for general unitary operations as well as for the restriction to easier implementable Gaussian unitaries. We find that practical Gaussian battery charging, while performing significantly less well than is possible in principle, still offers asymptotically vanishing relative charge variances and fluctuations.
We consider the task of extracting work from quantum systems in the resource theory perspective of thermodynamics, where free states are arbitrary thermal states, and allowed operations are energy conserving unitary transformations. Taking as our work storage system a 'weight' we prove the second law and then present simple protocols which extract average work equal to the free energy change of the system - the same amount as in classical thermodynamics. Crucially, for systems in 'classical' states (mixtures of energy eigenstates) our protocol works on a single copy of the system. This is in sharp contrast to previous results, which showed that in case of almost-deterministic work extraction, collective actions on multiple copies are necessary to extract the free energy. This establishes the fact that free energy is a meaningful notion even for individual systems in classical states. However, for non-classical states, where coherences between energy levels exist, we prove that collective actions are necessary, so long as no external sources of coherence are used.
In realistic situations, physical systems can not be completely isolated from its environment. Its inevitable interaction with the environment can influence the working process of the device. In this paper, we consider two-qubit quantum batteries where one qubit of the battery is successively interacting with the spins present in the surrounding environment. We examine the effect of the interaction on the maximum amount of energy that can be extracted from the battery using unitaries. In this context, we use the notion of locally passive states. In particular, we examine the behavior of the amount of extractable work from the noisy battery, initially prepared in a locally passive or ordinary pure state, having a fixed initial entanglement, with the number of interactions the qubit has gone through. We also examine the amount of locally extractable work from the noisy battery. We realize though the amount of extractable energy, be it global or local, as a whole will decrease with the number of spins of environment it interacted with, but if we increase the time interval of the interaction with each spin, after a cut off value of the interval, the small time behavior shows a peculiarity, i.e., the extractable energy within a single interaction starts to increase with time. The cut-off time indicates the Markovian-to-non-Markovian transition of the interaction. We also observe a non-Markovian increase in extractable energy from the Markovian scenario.
We show that a cyclic unitary process can extract work from the thermodynamic equilibrium state of an engineered quantum dissipative process. Systems in the equilibrium states of these processes serve as batteries, storing energy. The dissipative process that brings the battery to the active equilibrium state is driven by an agent that couples the battery to thermal systems. The second law of thermodynamics imposes a work cost for the process; however, no work is needed to keep the battery in that charged state. We consider simple examples of these batteries and discuss situations in which the charged state has full population inversion, in which case the extractable work is maximal, and circumstances in which the efficiency of the process is maximal.