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arXiv:2105.00040 · Physical Review A

Nonadiabatic evolution and thermodynamics of a time-dependent open quantum system

Dan Wang, Dazhi Xu

Published Sep 1, 2021• 5 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the dynamic evolution and thermodynamic process of a driven quantum system immersed in a finite-temperature heat bath. A Born-Markovian quantum master equation is formally derived for the time-dependent system with discrete energy levels. This quantum master equation can be applied to situations with a broad range of driving speeds and bath temperatures and thus be used to study the finite-time quantum thermodynamics even when nonadiabatic transition and dissipation coexist. The dissipative Landau-Zener model is analyzed as an example. The population evolution and transition probability of the model reveal the importance of the competition between driving and dissipation beyond the adiabatic regime. Moreover, local maxima of irreversible entropy production occur at intermediate sweep velocity and finite temperature, which the low-dissipation model cannot describe.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.104.032201

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By introducing a temporal change time scale τ_{A}(t) for the time-dependent system Hamiltonian, a general formulation of the Markovian quantum master equation is given to go well beyond the adiabatic regime. In appropriate situations, the framework is well justified even if τ_{A}(t) is faster than the decay time scale of the bath correlation function. An application to the dissipative Landau-Zener model demonstrates this general result. The findings are applicable to a wide range of fields, providing a basis for quantum control beyond the adiabatic regime.
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We present an approach based on a density matrix expansion to study thermodynamic properties of a quantum system strongly coupled to two or more baths. For slow external driving of the system, we identify the adiabatic and nonadiabatic contributions to thermodynamic quantities, and we show how the first and second laws of thermodynamics are manifested in the strong coupling regime. Particularly, we show that the entropy production is positive up to second order in the driving speed. The formulation can be applied both for bosonic and fermionic systems, and recovers previous results for the equilibrium case [Phys. Rev. B 98, 134306 (2018)]. The approach is then demonstrated for the driven resonant level model as well as the driven Anderson impurity model, where the hierarchical quantum master equation method is used to accurately simulate the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics.
We derive a Markovian master equation for a linearly driven dissipative quantum harmonic oscillator, valid for generic driving beyond the adiabatic limit. We solve this quantum master equation for arbitrary Gaussian initial states and investigate its departure from the adiabatic master equation in the regime of fast driving. We concretely examine the behavior of dynamical variables, such as position and momentum, as well as of thermodynamic quantities, such as energy and entropy. We additionally study the influence of the nonequilibrium driving on the quantum coherence of the oscillator in the instantaneous energy eigenbasis. We further analyze the approach to the adiabatic limit and the relaxation to the instantaneous steady state as a function of the driving speed.