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arXiv:2610.09062

Geometric heat pumping on a quantum processor

Gerónimo J. Caselli, Luis O. Manuel, Liliana Arrachea, Pablo S. Cornaglia

quant-phcond-mat.mes-hallcond-mat.otherSubmitted Oct 6, 2026• Announced Oct 8, 2026• 0 citations
v1 · Oct 6, 2026v2 · Oct 15, 2026
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Abstract

Geometric heat pumping is the transfer of energy between reservoirs at equal temperature where the heat exchanged in an adiabatic cycle depends only on the driving contour in parameter space. We implement this mechanism on a superconducting quantum processor using a collision model, where a driven qubit interacts repeatedly with two ancilla qubits that are prepared in thermal states and emulate the reservoirs. Energy measurements before and after each interaction provide a calorimetric record of the heat exchanged with each reservoir. By reversing the driving contour, we extract a heat contribution associated with pumping. Its dependence on the period and on the contour follows exact simulations of the collision model, without adjustable parameters, and approaches in the slow-driving regime the geometric limit of the corresponding Lindblad dynamics.

Comments
6 pages, 3 figures + Supplemental Material

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Geometric heat pumping is the transfer of energy between reservoirs at equal temperature where the heat exchanged in an adiabatic cycle depends only on the driving contour in parameter space. We implement this mechanism on a superconducting quantum processor using a collision model, where a driven qubit interacts repeatedly with two ancilla qubits that are prepared in thermal states and emulate the reservoirs. Energy measurements before and after each interaction provide a calorimetric record of the heat exchanged with each reservoir. By reversing the driving contour, we extract a heat contribution associated with pumping. Its dependence on the period and on the contour follows exact simulations of the collision model, without adjustable parameters, and approaches in the slow-driving regime the geometric limit of the corresponding Lindblad dynamics.
We present a detailed analysis of slowly driven quantum thermal machines based on interacting qubits within the framework of the Lindblad master equation. By implementing a systematic expansion in the driving rate, we derive explicit expressions for the rate of work of the driving forces, the heat currents exchanged with the reservoirs, and the entropy production up to second order, ensuring full thermodynamic consistency in the linear-response regime. The formalism naturally separates geometric and dissipative contributions, identified by a Berry curvature and a metric in parameter space, respectively. Analytical results show that the geometric heat pumped per cycle is bounded by kBTNqln⁡2k_B T N_q \ln 2kB​TNq​ln2 for NqN_qNq​ non-interacting qubits, in direct analogy with the Landauer limit for entropy change. This bound can be surpassed when qubit interactions and asymmetric couplings to the baths are introduced. Numerical results for the interacting two-qubit system reveal a non-trivial role of the interaction between qubits and the coupling between the qubits and the baths in the behavior of the dissipated power. The approach provides a general platform for studying dissipation, pumping, and performance optimization in driven quantum devices operating as heat engines.
We adopt a geometric approach to describe the performance of adiabatic quantum machines, operating under slow time-dependent driving and in contact with two reservoirs with a temperature bias during all the cycle.We show that the problem of optimizing the power generation of a heat engine and the efficiency of both the heat engine and refrigerator operational modes is reduced to an isoperimetric problem with nontrivial underlying metrics and curvature.This corresponds to the maximization of the ratio between the area enclosed by a closed curve and its corresponding length.We illustrate this procedure in a qubit coupled to two reservoirs operating as a thermal machine by means of an adiabatic protocol.
We present an overview of recent advances in the study of energy dynamics and mechanisms for energy conversion in qubit systems with special focus on realizations in superconducting quantum circuits. We briefly introduce the relevant theoretical framework to analyze heat generation, energy transport and energy conversion in these systems with and without time-dependent driving considering the effect of equilibrium and non-equilibrium environments. We analyze specific problems and mechanisms under current investigation in the context of qubit systems. These include the problem of energy dissipation and possible routes for its control, energy pumping between driving sources and heat pumping between reservoirs, implementation of thermal machines and mechanisms for energy storage. We highlight the underlying fundamental phenomena related to geometrical and topological properties, as well as many-body correlations. We also present an overview of recent experimental activity in this field.
Quantum heat engines require precise control over thermal reservoirs and the energies of the quantum working medium. Although superconducting circuits enable accurate engineering of controlled quantum systems, they have not yet been employed to experimentally realize a cyclic quantum heat engine. Here, we demonstrate a quantum heat engine with superconducting circuits, using a quantum-circuit refrigerator as a tunable heat reservoir and a flux-tunable transmon qubit as the working medium. Starting from a thermal state, we implement a few quantum Otto cycles with a tailored reservoir drive inducing sequential cooling and heating, interleaved with flux ramps controlling qubit frequency. Utilizing single-shot qubit readout, we monitor the qubit state evolution during the cycles and measure positive output powers and efficiencies, agreeing with corresponding simulations. Our results verify thermodynamic models of quantum heat engines, advance control of thermal environments, and open avenues for exploring possible quantum advantages.
We study the statistical distribution of the ergotropy and of the efficiency of a single-qubit battery ad of a single-qubit Otto engine, respectively fueled by random collisions. The single qubit, our working fluid, is assumed to exchange energy with two reservoirs: a nonequilibrium "hot" reservoir and a zero-temperature cold reservoir. The interactions between the qubit and the reservoirs are described in terms of a collision model of open system dynamics. The qubit interacts with the nonequilibrium reservoir (a large ensemble of qudits all prepared in the same pure state) via random unitary collisions and with the cold reservoir (a large ensemble of qubits in their ground state) via a partial swap. Due to the random nature of the interaction with the hot reservoir, fluctuations in ergotropy, heat, and work are present, shrinking with the size of the qudits in the hot reservoir. While the mean, "macroscopic" efficiency of the Otto engine is the same as in the case in which the hot reservoir is a thermal one, the distribution of efficiencies does not support finite moments, so that the mean of efficiencies does not coincide with the macroscopic efficiency.
A quantum thermal machine can be controlled by time-periodic perturbations that define a cycle, as in conventional macroscopic thermal machines. This paper presents a general and unified approach to the study of quantum thermal machines, including both heat engines and refrigerators, which operate under periodic adiabatic driving and are in contact with thermal reservoirs kept at different temperatures. Importantly, many observables characterizing the operation and the performance of these machines are geometric in nature.