Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a 'Maxwell's demon' to power a single-temperature heat engine by decreasing the entropy. Quantum mechanically, so can a non-selective measurement, despite increasing the entropy of a thermal state. The maximal amount of work extractable following the measurement is given by the change in free energy: W (non-)sel max = Δ E meas − T Bath Δ S (non-)sel meas . This follows from the 'generalized 2nd law for nonequilibrium initial state' (Hasegawa et al 2010 Phys. Lett. A 374 1001–4), an elementary reduction of which to the standard law is given here. It is shown that W sel max − W non-sel max is equal to the work required for resetting the memory of the measuring device and that no such resetting is needed in the non-selective case. Consequently, a single-bath engine powered by either kind of measurement works at a net loss of T Bath Δ S non-sel meas per cycle. By replacing the measurement by a reversible 'pre-measurement' and allowing a work source to couple to the system and memory , the cycle can be rendered completely reversible.
Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a 'Maxwell's demon' to power a single-temperature heat engine by decreasing the entropy. Quantum mechanically, so can a non-selective measurement, despite increasing the entropy of a thermal state. The maximal amount of work extractable following the measurement is given by the change in free energy: W (non-)sel max = Δ E meas − T Bath Δ S (non-)sel meas . This follows from the 'generalized 2nd law for nonequilibrium initial state' (Hasegawa et al 2010 Phys. Lett. A 374 1001–4), an elementary reduction of which to the standard law is given here. It is shown that W sel max − W non-sel max is equal to the work required for resetting the memory of the measuring device and that no such resetting is needed in the non-selective case. Consequently, a single-bath engine powered by either kind of measurement works at a net loss of T Bath Δ S non-sel meas per cycle. By replacing the measurement by a reversible 'pre-measurement' and allowing a work source to couple to the system and memory , the cycle can be rendered completely reversible.
Quantum measurement of a system can change its mean energy, as well as entropy. A selective measurement (classical or quantum) can be used as a "Maxwell's demon" to power a single-temperature heat engine, by decreasing the entropy. Quantum mechanically, so can a non-selective measurement, despite increasing the entropy of a thermal state. The maximal amount of work extractable following the measurement is given by the change in free energy: Wmax(non−)sel.=ΔEmeas−TBathΔSmeas(non−)sel.. This follows from the "generalized 2nd law for nonequilibrium initial state" [Hasegawa et. al, PLA (2010)], of which an elementary reduction to the standard law is given here. It is shown that Wmaxsel.−Wmaxnon−sel. equals the work required to reset the memory of the measuring device, and that no such resetting is needed in the non-selective case. Consequently, a single-bath engine powered by either kind of measurement works at a net loss of TBathΔSmeasnon−sel per cycle. By replacing the measurement by a reversible "premeasurement" and allowing a work source to couple to the system and memory, the cycle can be made completely reversible.
The essence of both classical and quantum engines is to extract useful energy (work) from stochastic energy sources, e.g., thermal baths. In Maxwell's demon engines, work extraction is assisted by a feedback control based on measurements performed by a demon, whose memory is erased at some nonzero energy cost. Here we propose a new type of quantum Maxwell's demon engine where work is directly extracted from the measurement channel, such that no heat bath is required. We show that in the Zeno regime of frequent measurements, memory erasure costs eventually vanish. Our findings provide a new paradigm to analyze quantum heat engines and work extraction in the quantum world.
With a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems undergoing, respectively, quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths at different stages of a cycle, we are able to clarify some important aspects of the second law of thermodynamics. The quantum heat engines also offer a practical way, as an alternative to Szilard's engine, to physically realize Maxwell's demon. While respecting the second law on the average, they are also capable of extracting more work from the heat baths than is otherwise possible in thermal equilibrium.
We analyze an engine whose working fluid consists of a single quantum particle, paralleling Szilard's construction of a classical single-particle engine. Following his resolution of Maxwell's Second Law paradox using the latter, which turned on physically instantiating the demon (control subsystem), the quantum engine's design mirrors the classically-chaotic Szilard Map that operates a thermodynamic cycle of measurement, thermal-energy extraction, and memory reset. Focusing on the thermodynamic costs to observe and control the particle and comparing these in the quantum and classical limits, we detail the thermodynamic tradeoffs behind Landauer's Principle for information-processing-induced thermodynamic dissipation in the quantum and classical regimes. In particular, and as found with the classical engine, we show that the sum of the thermodynamic costs over a cycle obeys a generalized Landauer Principle, exactly balancing energy extraction from the heat bath. Thus, the quantum engine obeys the Second Law. However, the quantum engine does so via substantially different mechanisms: classically measurement and erasure determine the thermodynamics, while in the quantum implementation the cost of partition insertion is key.
The emerging field of quantum thermodynamics is beginning to reveal the intriguing role that information can play in quantum thermal engines. Information enters as a resource when considering feedback-controlled thermal machines. While both a general theory of quantum feedback control as well as specific examples of quantum feedback-controlled engines have been presented, still lacking is a general framework for such machines. Here, we present a framework for a generic, two-stroke quantum heat engine interacting with N thermal baths and Maxwell's demon. The demon performs projective measurements on the engine working substance, the outcome of which is recorded in a classical memory, embedded in its own thermal bath. To perform feedback control, the demon enacts unitary operations on the working substance, conditioned on the recorded outcome. By considering the compound machine-memory as a hybrid (classical-quantum) standard thermal machine interacting with N+1 thermal baths, our framework puts the working substance and memory on equal footing, thereby enabling a comprehensible resolution to Maxwell's paradox and elucidating the intricate manner in which information impacts the performance of quantum engines. We illustrate the application of our framework with a two-qubit engine. A remarkable observation is that more information does not necessarily result in better thermodynamic performance: sometimes knowing less is better.
The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system is nondecreasing. Discussing the second law in the quantum world poses different challenges and provides different opportunities, involving fundamental quantum-information-theoretic questions and interesting quantum-engineered devices. In quantum mechanics, systems with an evolution described by a so-called unital quantum channel evolve with a nondecreasing entropy. Here, we seek the opposite, a system described by a nonunital and, furthermore, energy-conserving channel that describes a system whose entropy decreases with time. We propose a setup involving a mesoscopic four-lead scatterer augmented by a microenvironment in the form of a spin that realizes this goal. Within this nonunital and energy-conserving quantum channel, the microenvironment acts with two noncommuting operations on the system in an autonomous way. We find that the process corresponds to a partial exchange or swap between the system and environment quantum states, with the system's entropy decreasing if the environment's state is more pure. This entropy-decreasing process is naturally expressed through the action of a quantum Maxwell demon and we propose a quantum-thermodynamic engine with four qubits that extracts work from a single heat reservoir when provided with a reservoir of pure qubits. The special feature of this engine, which derives from the energy conservation in the nonunital quantum channel, is its separation into two cycles, a working cycle and an entropy cycle, allowing us to run this engine with no local waste heat.